


The Secret Worth Dying For

by Adaka



Category: All Time Low, Pierce the Veil
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaka/pseuds/Adaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The detour is the least of their problems when deep down the uncharted road they begin running into problems that eventually come to the demise of those who want to know. You know what they say, curiosity killed the cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for my tumblr friend Samori who doesn't have an account here and I can't say her url 'cause she changes it about 25809680396 times a year, but that's OK 'cause you're awesomesauce :^)

"...don't think that's possible yet," Tony overheard Alex saying to Jack as they were, most likely, discussing some kind of crazy idea that's probably highly unlikely to happen.

Tony stood there for a few seconds but neither of them took any notice. Eventually he cleared his throat signaling he was there and Jack and Alex turned and saw him standing their. "Hey Tony," Jack signaled him to come over, "Alex doesn't think that the bus could come alive one day and drive away on it's own. I mean come on, it could couldn't it?"

"Well," Tony though for a moment, "It isn't impossible, it would just have to go through a major tune up and become some kind of robot bus before it can start moving around by it's self."

"See," Jack turned back to Alex, "It isn't impossible."

Alex rolled his eyes, "I never said it was impossible, I just said that we can't be going and doing that now."

"Sure that's what you meant. Always have to rain on my parade," Jack crossed his arms, "You just don't like the idea of the bus turning into a transformer, don't you?"

Alex gave an irritated sigh and decided to ignore the question. He turned to Tony and asked, "So what brings you to our humble mobile hut?"

"Vic sent me over to let you guys know we're leaving soon so you don't end up getting left behind not sure where to go to next," Tony answered, pointing back towards the Pierce The Veil bus.

"Alright," Alex nodded then stood up, "Tell him thanks for sending you to let us know. We most likely  _would_ have got left behind from arguing about Jack's stupid 'what if' theory."

Jack put his arms up trying to defend himself, "Come on, I'm just saying, I'm sure Zack and Rian would agree how awesome that would be and you're here just saying 'oh no no that would be terrible. No no we can't do that'."

"Well then why don't you go ask them, into the bus with you," Alex pointed at the bus' door.

Jack and Alex both climbed into the bus, still discussing the bus coming alive when Tony turned around and headed back towards his own band to deliver yet another message.

"We all set?" Tony asked when he spotted MIke.

"Yup, I'm pretty sure everything is all packed up," Mike said without looking back at Tony and getting into the bus.

"Good," Tony said to himself as he got onto the bus after Mike.

"They almost ready to go?" Vic asked when he noticed Tony.

Tony nodded, "Alex said, 'thanks for sending you to let us know. We most likely  _would_ have got left behind from arguing about Jack's stupid 'what if' theory'."

Vic let out a small laugh. "I haven't been demoted to the permanent messenger boy for this tour have I? 'Cause this is the fifth time I've had to deliver a message for someone on this tour and we've only finished our third show," Tony complained sitting down on the couch.

"Yes you have. Too bad, I warned you about raiding the candy box on the first day. I don't know where you stashed all the candy bars you took or if you just ate them all, but this is the punishment you'll get. Having to run our messages," Vic said pulling out a box that was a forth of the way full of various breeds of candy bars.

"We can call him he Tony Express," Jaime grinned, pulling a random candy out of the box Vic was still holding.

"Let's not," Tony replied coldly, glaring at Jaime.

Jaime snickered and started slowly eating the candy bard he was holding looking directly at Tony. Tony sighed and looked away, "This is going to be a long ride."

"You know what'll make it longer?" Jaime asked through the chunks of chocolate in his mouth.

"Do I even want to know?" Tony asked dryly.

"...Are we their yet?" Jaime asked sitting down right next to Tony.

"Oh, God, Jaime, please don't start that," Tony hissed giving him his best 'death glare'.

"How about now?"

"No!"

"We gotta be their now."

"We haven't even started moving yet! How could we possibly be their yet?" Tony covered his face with his hands.

"Super powers," Jaime shrugged.

"Why is everyone assuming the buses have some kind of special ability? They're just buses," Tony asked no one in particular.

"Maybe because we found out a secret that they're all secretly transformers," Jaime stated.

"That would be cool, but I know you're lying," Tony removed his hands.

"We're moving!" Jaime yelled happily when the door slammed shut from Vic coming back into the bus, "We must be their now!"

"No, we are not their and it didn't move. Can you please go annoy someone else?" Tony plead.

Jaime frowned, "You don't want to talk to me no more?"

"Honestly?" Tony asked resulting in a small nod from Jaime who was pretending to act hurt. "Not right now, so just go scamper off and go talk to someone else or something. Please?"

Jaime hung his head and let out an overly long sight, then another, and another. "Jaime!" Tony put his hand on Jaime's mouth hoping that would stop him for a little bit.

"Alright," Jaime pushed away Tony's hand, "I'll go."

"Thank you," he said relived and put his head back against the couch.

Jaime went over to where Mike and Vic were and started talking to them, "Well I'm board now, Tony got all mad and me for 'bugging' him."

"Don't you think anyone would get mad or at least a little bit upset if someone kept asking them 'are we their yet? How about now?' when the bus hasn't even started moving?" Mike pointed out. "I know I would."

Jaime gave a tiny smile and started, "are we th..."

"Don't," Vic stopped him, "Didn't you just hear what he said?"

Jaime nodded quickly. "How much sugar did you have today?" Vic asked, picking up on Jaime's hyper act.

He thought for a moment then started listing off everything he remembered eating that was sugary, "Well, this morning I had a bowl of Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk. Then there was those two soda's I drank and that candy bar I had before. Oh yes, and there was this taffy rope I had along the day."

Mike looked at him confused, "Why would you up chocolate milk in Cocoa Puffs? It turns the milk into chocolate milk later on in the process of the cereal bathing in the bowl."

Jaime shrugged not giving him and answer. "Yeah, you should go and try to get some sleep or something to try to get you out of the sugar high or else we might have to result in throwing you out of the bus and maybe forcing the All Time Low guys to deal with you," Vic warned.

"As if they don't have enough trouble makers to deal with," Mike joked.

-*-*-

"Jack, get off the floor," Alex sighed looking down at Jack who was sprawled across the floor.

"But it's so nice down here," Jack whined, closing his eyes and hugging the surface.

"I'm sure it is, but unless you don't want to be used as a rug, I'd suggest you get up," Alex crossed his arms, talking in a motherly tone.

But Jack just sat their with a big grin plastered across his face.

"I swear to God Jack, if you don't get up off the fuckin' floor, I will personally turn this bus around and drop you up at your house and continue the tour without you," Alex said intensely, arms still crossed, staring down at his band mate who was now slightly rolling around.

"Aw, come on Ali, it's fun down here," Jack said in the most temping voice he could manage while patting the floor a bit as if welcoming everyone around to join his floor party.

"It's Alex, not Ali, you should know that by now. You and a whole ton of people have called me Alex, not Ali," he pointed out.

"Come on, Alexandria," Jack teased, "Why can't you have a change in name every now and then?"

"Don't..." Alex started but was interrupted by Jack continuing on with whatever he wanted to babble on about.

"Besides, what's wrong with me being on the floor anyways? It's not like you're trying to move the couch from point A to point B," Jack pointed back towards the couch and rolled his head a little to face it.

"You're not going to move the couch because I'm perfectly happy with it sitting here," Zack spoke up, peering over the side of the couch at Alex who was still extremely annoyed by Jack who was now doing some kind of floor dance.

"I wasn't even planning on moving the couch in the first place!" Alex flung his arms up a little past his head then dropped them, glaring at Zack.

"Ha ha, you got in trouble," Jack gave a childish laugh and pointed at Alex.

"What's up with you today?" Alex turned his attention back to Jack, "You're being more of a Jackass than normal."

"Well," Jack started, then closed his eyes, "I'd like to thank you for putting my name in that little rant of yours, it was very punny of you." He peeked open an eye to see if Alex broke the from he had at Jack's stupid pun attempt, he didn't. "Anyways, you just gotta do something different from now and then. If you wanna pick at your butt in public then give your finger a little sample, then by all means, go ahead."

"That's disgusting," Alex scrunched up his face.

"Come on dude," Jack sighed, "You're ruining the moment. Anyways, before I was so rudely interrupted, sometimes you just have to do things, better example: me on the floor."

"You know what," Alex shook his head a little, giving up, "Whatever, I don't even care anymore. Do whatever the hell you want, just don't touch any of my shit or come complaining to me when someone's foot mashes your head in."

"Yay!" Jack squealed rolling around the floor some more.

After Alex went off toward the front of the bus, Zack peeked his head over the armrest of the couch and looked down at Jack then whispered, "You know what Imma do? Imma step in your fucking head."

Jack immediately snapped his head back and caught Zack sliding his head out of Jack's view. "Why would you do that to me?" Jack eventually whispered back.

"Because," Zack said, his voice sounding a little more distant.

Jack just laid their on the floor looking up at the armrest, waiting for Zack to reappear and thinking of what he said, if he really meant it or not, he was probably just joking around. Eventually Jack squirmed his way over to the long side of the couch. He looked over the edge for any sign of Zack being scrunched up in some area for him not to see him from the floor but the couch was empty, as if Zack just vanished from the couch completely. Jack sat up from where he was and looked around some more, searching for any trace of the bassist. "Zack?" he called.

No answer. Jack tried a little bit louder, "Zack?"

"He just went to the bathroom, didn't you see him go in?" Rian walked over, looking down at Jack who's back was propped up against the bottom half of the couch.

"No," Jack shook his head trying to figure out how Zack could have slipped away without him seeing our hearing him walk off.

 _Maybe he walked away on the ceiling_ Jack thought looking up to the ceiling but still no trace of Zack.

-*-*-

"Crap," Mike groaned, looking out the window at the wooded barricade crossing the road and the small group of signs attached to it as the bus slowly came to a stop.

"Why'd we stop?" Vic came over, curious to see if something went wrong.

"Guess we can't go the way we originally planned unless we are up for a midnight drowning," Mike pointed ahead at the signs reading  _Detour ←_  and  _Bridge Out_.

"I suppose we should..." Vic started but was silenced by his phone ringing, "Hello?'

Alex's voice carried throughout the speaker for Mike to hear, "Hey, how come we stopped? Did something happen?"

"No, we just discovered a detour sign blocking our original direction so we're deciding if we should take the detour or go back and find another route."

"Tell him that the road that the sign is pointing to isn't even mapped out on any maps," Mike said looking at a map of the area on his phone.

"Kay, Mike said said that the road it wants us to go down isn't even charted anywhere," Vic added.

"I guess we should go down it, I mean, what's the worst that could happen? If we get lost we could just follow the road until it leads us somewhere," Alex said.

"I suppose," Vic then looked at Mikey, "Off through the detour it is than."

"How much time do you think we're going to get added onto the trip?" Alex asked.

"I don't know, maybe a few minutes or half an hour or more. Like I said, there's no maps that we have with the road on it so...that'll be a little bit of a problem for now."

"As long as we get there right?" Alex said trying to brighten the mood. "They can't exactly start without us."

"Yeah," Vic let out a small laugh, "And hopefully the next time we stop we'll be at the city of our next show."

"Hopefully," Alex nodded into the phone then hung up.

Vic stood, looking out the window a few minutes later, watching the road go by in the headlights. "You got any idea of how much time we added on 'til we get their?" Vic asked turning to his brother.

Mike shook his head, "No idea."

"Great," Vic sighed then turned away and began heading in the other direction. "Hey Mike," he said turning back around, "Remember, if you get tired our something make sure you call one of us over so you don't end up falling asleep while driving, alright?"

"Alright," Mike agreed without turning away from the road.

-*-*-

"What's happening? Are we lost?" Jack looked up from the spot he was still sitting at when he heard the phone call end.

Rian shook his head coming over to answer Jack's question, "Detour."

Jack rested his head back down on the floor, "Perfect, more time to spend with this wonderful floor."

"Yeah, well hopefully it won't take too much longer to get their or else you might end up being stuck on their. Then Alex might get a little crabby about having to find some way to cut you of your precious floor," Rian smirked.

"I suppose that would be a shame," Jack frowned petting the floor. "Having to ruin the floor just to get me off of it."

"Such a shame," Rian said.


	2. Chapter 2

"How long _is_ this road?" Jaime whined looking out the window at the road that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

"I don't know, like I mentioned before, this road isn't mapped out on any maps or the GPS," Vic shrugged.

"It's all kind of weird when you think about it," Mike said. "Some bridge we have to get across colapses so we have to go onto some fucking road that streches on forever. I mean, have we even passed a house or any type of building since we turned down this road? I haven't even seen a sign in miles. No stop signs, speed limits, animal crossings not even another car. Absolutely nothing except for trees and dirt and road."

"He has a point," Jaime said prying his veiw from the window.

"Well," Vic sighed, "All we can do right now is follow it 'til we find something. I mean, this road has to go somewhere."

"True," Jaime nodded.

After a while of them constantly switching conversation topics Vic's phone goes off again. Before he could say 'hello' Alex's voice echoed out through the phone's speakers. "We may have a slight problem."

"Slight? How slight is the problem?" Vic asked getting curios looks from the other two in the room.

"Oh, nothing much, we're just getting real low on gas and all," Alex answered acting as if it was nothing.

"Oh is that all? Yeah, of couse that's not a big problem. I'm sure that one of these tree\ out here contains a trunk full of gas you can fill the bus up with," Vic said as sarcasticly as possible.

"Well then," Alex pulled the phone away a little, "Screw you too."

"Sorry," Vic said putting his free hand on top of his head, "It's just..."

"I know," Alex nodded, his head scratching against the side of the phone, "We both fueled up at the same time,  maybe we didn't put much in or they have different milage or something of that sort."

"Yeah," Vic got up and walked over to where Tony was in the front, "How we doing on gas? Alex says they're running pretty low."

Tony let out a slight chuckle, "Guess you could say the gas level is reaching it's all time low."

"Ha ha, very funny," Alex rolled his eyes over hearing Tony's little joke.

Tony gave a small grin and looked down at the gas meter. "Ours is a little over half full," he said a little louder this time so Alex was sure to hear it.

"You hear what Tony said?" Vic asked just to be sure.

"About what?" Alex asked back, "It being over half full or about our gas tank about to hit it's all time low...shut up Jack."

"Th...the gas tank being over half full," Vic said being cut off for a moment by Alex responding to whatever Jack said.

"Yeah, so what are we going to do? Are we going to stop or try to push forward or what?" Alex asked.

"Um," VIc thought for a moment, "Why don't we all stop for a little and see if anything blew up in the motor or if there's a leak or something like that,, just to be sure nothing happened besides just running low on gas."

"Alright, meet you outside then," Alex said then hung up, again.

"Guess we're gonna have to stop for a little pit stop, kay?" Vic turned to Tony when the call was over.

"Alright," Tony nodded and slowed the bus down to a stop.

-*-*-

"It's not that funny," Alex looked down at Jack who has now scotted over next to the drivers seat Alex was sitting at.

"Well," Jack said stretching out the 'e' way longer than it should have been, "It kinda is."

"Another thing," Alex said while he was stopping the bus, "Have you been on the floor all night?"

"It's morning?" Juack looked up through the windshield from where he was sitting to peek up at the sky, "Hm, I guess so. It's pretty hard to tell what time of day it is out here."

"I know," Alex sighed.

"Mhm, you seem pretty upset up there, I'm sure I could help you find a way to calm yourself down," Jack smirked and gave Alex a quick wink when the bus came to a complete stop.

Alex looked down at Jack, well more of glared down at Jack. Then without a word Alex got up and went outside to meet with the others. "What?" Jack raised his arms up a bit when Alex was walking off. "I was kidding!"

"Smooth," Rian chuckled then followed Alex outside.

"I was kidding!" Jack said, his voice sounding higher this time and got up to follow them.

"Anybody find anything or were we just running out?" 

Alex asked after a minute or so of searching around the outside of the bus.

"Running out of gas will take a lot sooner when this is your problem," Tony said looking down at a puddle of gas dripping down onto the old cracked road.

"Shit," Alex turned away, running a hand through his hair trying to think of what to do next, "No wonder the gauge was dropping so quickly lately."

"At this rate we're probably not going to get their until two or three days from now," Rian frowned.

"That'll suck because we'll have to reschedule everything so all the shows can fit in everything," Jack's eyes widened.

"Jack, you're not helping," Alex warned.

"They can't exactly start without us," Mike said repeating what Vic said earlier.

Alex nodded in agreement. "Who knows, maybe they's some small town or city somwhere farther up. We shouldn't be too far from something," Jaime said.

"Hopefully," Alex said looking down at the edge of the bus.

"You want us to see if we can travel ahead a little to see if there's a town up ahead?" Vic asked, about to turn around towards the bus.

"Yeah, you guys go, we'll stay here and see if anyone goes by and hopefully they'll help," Alex said sweeping a hand forward signaling them to go on.

"Alright, we'll message you or something if we get somewhere other than the desterted forest," Vic said and walked forward towards the other bus.

"If we can get a signal," Tony mumbled looking at the words 'no signal' on the screen of his phone, following Vic.

"So what are we going to do until they get back?" Jack asked. "Just sit on the bus and hope some bear doesn't wander over and attack us?"

"As long as we stay in the bus the bear shouldn't get us," Rian shook his head looking out into the line of trees, checking to make sure nothing was visably poking out.

"Hey," Alex started looking around where the three of them were standing, "Have any of you seen Zack recently?"

"I thought he was still on the bus," Jack looked up at the bus' window he was standing under.

Alex thought for a moment, looking around a little, "Maybe, I'm gonna go check just to be sure. You two stay our here, call me over if you see him."

The other two nodded and Alex swun the door open, calling for Zack. When Alex was out of sight, Jack turned to Rian and asked, "Quite an awesome tour this is turning out to be, no?"

Rian snorted, "Oh yeah, this one'lll diffidently make the top of my 'best tours ever' list."

Inside the bus, Alex wandered around the bus calling for Zack and looking everywhere that Zack could possibly hide "Come on Zack, this place is only so big, you have to he in here somewhere."

Eventaully Alex went over to where Zack stashed his stuff and carefully moved some of his things around to make sure Zack wasn't hiding underneith anything. Right after Alex moved the first object, he heard a voice behind him that appeared to come out of nowhere, "What are you doing in my shit, Alex?"

Alex spun around and came face to face with Zack who looked a little furious but yet for some reason a very tiny trace of a smirk on his face. "Looking for you, that's what I'm doing. I looked everywhere in this bus for you because maybe you could be hiding in here somewhere instead of lost in the woods. I look under your stuff and look at that, you just apeared like a genie out of a bottle. It's not like I was snooping through anything," Alex said.

"Liar," Zack responded, his expression unchanged.

"What's up with you? Are you feeling alright?" Alex asked taking a step back.

"Me? Oh yaeh, I'm perfectly fine," Zack slightly shook his head, eye's locked on Alex.

"All...alright, why don't we go outside by Rian and Jack, I'm sure they'll be releved to find that you're not lost in the woods," Alex pointed towards the try trying to get out of whatever was going on here.

"I don't think so," Zack shook his head again and closed his eyes for a brief moment, "It'll interfere with the plans."

"What? What plans? I'm sure in your plans it says for you to let me go, that's some pretty good plans right there," Alex said, starting to freak out a little.

The smirk Zack wore grew a little larger and he let out a laugh that was far more sinister sounding than any laugh he's ever made. "You know that's no..." Zack started but stopped when the door behind him was swung open.

"Alex, did you fi...oh there you are, Zack. Thought you might have gotten eaten by a bear or something," Jack said with his head poked through the door frame. "Hey, since we're out here in the forest, why don't we set up some chairs along the road and see if anything comes crawling out of the trees."

"Y...yeah, I'd say that would be...awesome," Alex stuttered and quickly slipped past Zack and Jack, getting outside as quickly as possible.

"What's up with him?" Jack asked looking back at Alex scurrying out the door.

Zack shrugged, "It's probably nothing."

"Yeah, nothing," Jack rose an eyebrow and headed back outside.

-*-*-

"What the hell is this now?" Tony almost yelled in fustration.

"What happened?" Jaime asked walking over then took a drink of the soda he was holding.

"When we left to go find gas for the other guys, didn't we have over half a tank?" Tony asked.

"Uh, I think so, I mean, that's what everyone was saying. I don't 100% know because I didn't really see it myself," Jaime shrugged, "Why?"

"Because for some reason we have less than a fourth a tank and we went only what, two three miles?" Tony pointed at the fuel gage that looked to be creeping closer towards the E.

"Shit," Jaime leaned in a little closer to get a better lok at how close the little needle was to the E. "Think we got the same problem?"

"I sure hope not," Tony muttered pulling to the side of the road, again.

Tony got a pair of curious looks from Vic and Mike when the bus came to a stop and Tony went back outside to check if they were having bus troubles as well. "Damn it," Tony muttered under his breath when he saw the puddle of has under the bus, at the pace it was dripping, it'll be getting much  bigger very soon.

"Don't tell me we got a leak as well," Vic said walking behind Tony.

Tony turned and lookked behind him at Vic, "Nah, we're just flowing gummy worms from the bottom of the bus."

"Well geeze, you don't have to be a dick about it," Vic sneered.

"Yeah, well, to answer your question before, but yeah, the dripping is more of waterfall now," Tony said looking behind him towards the grownd.

"But how could this happened?" Vic asked.

"Hey," Tony turned and looked over at Zack, "When we all got out of the bus to see if we could spot what was wrong with the All Time Low bus, did you remember seeing Zack anywhere?"

"No," Vic said a little suprised, "You don't think he..."

Tony shrugged, "I don't know why he would, but it seems like a guess to me."

"Think he could have done the same to the other bus, if it was him?" Vic continued his questions.

"It's a possibility, we did stop for a short period of time right before all this shit happened," Tony reminded.

"But why? Why would he do that?" Vic asked, though he knew this question might not be able to be answered.

Tony shrugged, "There's an infinate amount of possibilities of why he could have done it."

"Think we should warn Alex, Jack and Rian, just in case?" Vic wondered.

"Yeah, b ut I'm not getting any signal out here," Tony pulled out his phone to recheck and see if there was any signal going to his phone.

-*-*-

Alex, Jack and Rian were all lined up on the edge of the road sitting in the lawn chairs they discovered in the back. "I wonder why Zack isn't here with us," Rian asked looking to the left at the bus parkeed not to far from him.

"It doesn't really matter, if he wants to say in there, it's fine by me," ALex said quietly while starring off at the bundles of trees patched around across the street.

There was a slight pause b efore anyone started talking agian and it was Jack who decided to break the silence, "What happened back in their? I walked in and you looked like someone was about to slaughter you. Did...did Zack do something to you?"

Alex carefully shook his head, "No, he _did_ nothing."

"Then he saind something, didn't he?" Jack pushed.

No reply. "He did, didn't he? What the fuck is up with him lately?"

"Lately?" Rian looked at Jack confused, "He did something else?"

"Yeah, at least I think so, yesterday he said something pretty fucking weird," Jack said remembered what Zack said to him yesterday after Alex left the room.

"What did he say?" Rian asked.

"I don't really remember but he didn't sound like he was kidding, something about steaping on my head," Zack said.

"Maybe he _was_ kidding and was just acting really well," Rian suggested.

"Maybe," Jack forced out. "But I'm not going to take the chance that he was 'maybe' kidding on whatever he said to Alex to make him get this freaked out."

Alex turned his headd towards Jack and whispered, "No, Jack, please don't go in their."

"Sorry dude," Jack shook his head and stood up, "Gotta fulfill my heroic duty. Rian, you stay here and watch over Alex, make sure no bears eat him."

Rian nodded and watched as Jack walked away from them, acting like he was going to rip the door off. Rian turned to look at Alex who was just starring off into the trees across the road again. He didn't dare to move down a seat for fear of 1) Alex might get uncomfortable by him moving closer 2) Jack might get pissed off for him taking his seat and 3) Rian kinda liked the spot he was sitting at right now and din't really feel like getting up and moving over.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Jack yelled as soon as he slammed the bus door shut.

Zack was sitting at the edge of the couch, staring at a TV that wasn't even turned on. "What?" Zack asked, his voice level and his gaze still fixed on the motionless screen, "Can't I just sit here watching a blank TV without someone yelling at me?"

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it," Jack took a step forward pointing at Zack, "What I"m talking about is whatever the hell you did to Alex before we found out you were stashed back in here. What the fuck is wong with you that you would threaten one of your own friends like that until they look like they're about to have a complete breakdown?"

Zack cranked his neck to the side so he'd be looking strate at Jack, though it seemed he turned his head a little to fast than most people normally could... A mad man's grin was played across his face when he saw the rage builing up inside Jack. "Oh that? That was nothing."

"Bull shit it was nothing. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? You weren't this major dick that you are now when we left our previous show, so what came over you that you have to start acting like this?" Jack stood their not wanting to step forward any more, preventing himself from loosing total control.

Zack closed his eyes for a moment and shrugged. "Guess that's my little secret. However if I were to tell you," he looked up at the ceiling and lightly tapped his pointer finger on his chin then pulled his finger away and turned back to Jack, "I would have to make it so there's no possible way for you to tell anyone."

"You mean you'd have to kill me," Jack snarled.

Zack shrugged, "I guess if you want to call it that, but I'd like to think of it more of getting rid of evidence.

"Evidence?" Jack repeated.

Zack nodded. "What the hell man, did you get into some kind of drugs or something?" Jack asked.

He shook his head, "No drugs, just me."

"Well what is up with you then?" Jack asked.

Zack tilted his head back a bit and laughed, Oh Jack, you're such a curious moron. Still wants to know everything even knowing it'll cost him his life."

"Who says you'll end up killing me?" Jack rose hose an eyebrow, calming his voice down.

"Well, I did of course," Zack said it as if was an obvious statement.

"Well Zack," Jack paused for a second then said as confident as possible, "What if I were to kill you first?"

This brought the grin back to Zack's face. He stood up and began walking towards Jack. "That's right, I keep forgetting, you still think this is Zack talking."

Jack stared at Zack confused, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "Whoops," Zack covered his mouth for a moment then latched onto Jack's throat, "Looks like I gave away my dirty little serect."

Jack tried to squirm out of Zack's grasp but it only resulted in Zack grippin onto this throat tighter, "What d...do you mean you're not Zack?"

"You could say that Zack here, he's just my host," Zack shrugged. "But me, I'm what you humans refier more of as a parasite, and I'm quite the nasty of if I do say so myself. I can havk into your mind and take total control, almost like you're possessed. Of course, when I first logged into Zack's hard drive I may have not had the best speach as you can recall from that dumbass floor adventure you had yesterday."

"So...now th...that you're secret is out, I suppse you're going to h...have to kill me now?" Jack choked out trying to pry appart Zack's fingers.

"Ding ding ding, looks like we have a winner," Zack looked up at the ceiling as if he was waiting for a prize to drop down on this 'celebration', "But don't worry, you're not going to die from lack of breathing material, I do believe I've told you before how it's going to happen."

By now Jack's lungs seemed like they were on fire and his legs seemed like they were going to collapse from under him. Zack threw Jack onto the floor causing the side of his head to collide witht he corner of the counter. He hit the floor with a loud thump sound, a steady stream of crimson liquid was flowing out from above his ear. One hand was covering the wound and the other was placed on his chest, trying to regain the oxygen that left hes lungs. "It's your own fault you know, you're the one who wanted to know the truth, you know what they say; curiosity killed the Barakat," Zack said looking down at Jack who was still trying to refill his lungs. "Too bad this is your last verse."

Zack positioned the tip of his foot right at the base of Jack's head then gave it a swift kick with all the fouce he could manage. Jack's head bounced off the side of the wall opening up another red river from the vent his head landed next to. Zack was getting ready to smash the bottom of his foot down onto Jack's face, just like he said he would what seemed like so many years ago, when Alex and Rian burst through the door, complete horror on their faces. Without second thoughts, the two managed to tackle Zack to the floor, pinning him down, "I got him, Alex. You go see if Jack's alright."

Alex nodded and rushed over to Jack who was attempting to give Alex one last goofy grin, "I...I th...thought y...you.." Jack parused for a moment and started coughing causing a few blotches of blood to bubble out of his mouth and fall down his chin, "...would..n't care if some...one st...stepped on my h...head. You...you're such a li...ar Alex."

After that Jack's head fell back and he stopped moving, no more quick breaths were drawn in or out, just complete silence. "No no no no no, Jack, no. Don't go, please, I never meantfor that to actually happen Please come back, Jack, please," Alex pled, shaking Jack's lifeless body in hopes that he'll wake up.

At some point Rian must have knocked Zack out because he was layed across the floor with Rian trying to drag him into the bathroom. "Alex, help me out here, we'll worry about Jack after we get Zack dealth with," Rian yelled.

"But Jack, he's...he's dead," Alex croaked, his shaking hands hovering over Jack, not wanting to pick him up or leave him alone.

"I know, but we have to get Zack locked in their before he wakes up and kills more of us," Rian said still trying to pull Zack into the small room.

Alex took a deep breath and tried to stand up. He felt as if his legs were made of jelly and collapsed back onto the floor, "I...I can't. Oh my God Rian, he's dead, Zack went psycho and killed Jack!"

Rian dropped Zack back onto the floor and grabbed Alex by the shoulds, "Hey! Get a hold of yourself. Zack is going to wake up soon and until then and now, we have to lock him up as good as we can and get our asses out of here as far away as we can. What about hte other guys? We have to warn them incase Zack get's the idea to strike again!"

"F...fine," Alex whispered and wiped away the tears that were still falling forom his eyes and managed to stand up.

They both went over to Zack who was still laying unconscious on the floor. Rian must have his him with something pretty hard because there was a pretty large red and purple mark on Zack's forehead. They dragged him into the bathroom, sealing the door shut with anything that was heavy enough and wasn't onnected to the walls. "What about Jack?" Alex asked quitetly when Rian was making the escape out the door that was sill open.

"Leave him their," Rian said, still wanting to get out of the bus and far away as soon as possible.

"What?" Alex gasped franticly shaking his head back and forth.

"Listen, we have to get out of here, now!" Rian commanded, he grabbed Alex's arm and pulled him out of the bus, slamming the door shut once they were both out.

"But Jack..." Alex started, more tears streaming down his face.

"Alex! What do you expect us to do? We can't exactly be caring a dead body around," Rian tried to explain.

"We can't just leave him though," Alex said pointing at the bus.

"We'll get him later," Rian repeated, "Let's just try to get a hold of the other guys so we can get out of here."

"Fine," Alex eventually agreed and pulled out his phone.

-*-*-

"Do we rewally have to walk all the way to the other bus?" Jaime groaned abouyt a minue of walking.

"How else are we suppose to get their? The only vehicles on this road in miles is probably our bus and the All Time Low bus," Tony reminded.

A few secons later one of the phones started going off. "Not mine," Vic said looking up from his phone.

"Still no signal from mine," Tony shook his head.

"It's mine," Mike said looking at the caller ID then ansered the phone, "Hey Rian, suprised you got a hold of any of us out here, pretty shitty connection."

"Yeah, well we have a major problem, for more bigger than running out of gas or low reception," Rian said and Mike detecting the trace of fear in hs voice.

"What happened? Did the bus fall over?" Mike tried to guess, they  _were_ parked on the side of the road and it was a steep slope.

"No, far worse, it's," Rian paused for a moment, "It's Zack. He went crazy and, and killed Jack."

"What!?" Mike's voice grew wide resulting with the other three to try to make out what was going on.

"Yeah, please tell me your bus is still working so you can get us the hell out of here," Rian pled.

"Uh," Mike looked behind him at the direction of the broke down bus, "We got the same problem you did, with the fuel suddenly being emptied out."

"Shit," Rian groaned.

You two are walking in the direction we took off in, right?" Mike asked.

"Yeah."

"Good, we're walking towards you guys so if we keep walking we'll eventually meet up, alright?"

"Alright."

"Good, hang in there, you'll make it though this."

"OK," Rian said then hug up.

"So...what happened?" Jaime asked once he knew the phone call was over.

Mike paused for a moment before answering. "Jack's dead."

"What?" the other three said almost simultaneously.

"And...apparently Zack has gone a bit crazy and he was the one who killed Jack," Mike continued.

"Oh my god," Vic whispered.

"We have to find them before something else happens," Tony said, his eyes growing a little wider at the possiibilities that could happen.

The other three nodded and they started going, walking a little faster to get to the other two before anyone else would wind up dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously, i'm so sorry


	4. Chapter 4

Alex's eyes widened when he saw the four guys emerge out of the eerie fog that only recently swarmed over the area they were walking, "Thank god that we finally found you guys."

"Yeah, same here, we were getting worried that somewhere along you two would have gotten yourselves killed or lost or something like that," Vic said as they got closer.

"What makes you think that would end up happening?" Rian joked.

"Oh, no reason at all, never know what or who could be out there, it's not like Zack's a problem or anything," Mike said as sarcastically as possible.

"Yeah..." Alex said quietly looking down at the ground, memories of what happened earlier flashing back through his mind.

"Come on Mike, you don't need to be saying stuff like that, bring up the bad memories for him. I'm sure no one would want to go trough what happened," Vic scolded turning to his brother.

"It's, it's alright," Alex looked up from the road at the group of people.

"Alright," Vic nodded.

"So," Jaime started, "What's going to be the plan now?"

"We could try searching through the woods, maybe there's someone living out their who could help us get back to civilization," Jaime suggested.

"I'm pretty sure there's just swamp land out where we are right now, we might have to walk a bit more until we can get somewhere that the land and actually support a house without it sinking into the earth," Tony said motioning towards the trees.

"I didn't see any swamps around here as we were walking," Jaime looked out into the trees.

"There's fog everywhere, so there has to be some type of water form somewhere around here. If it isn't a swamp then there must be a lake," Tony noted.

"Wait," Rian said, "If it is a lake, then there might be some kind of cabin around here somewhere. Or even a little hunting shack. Maybe we'll find some people in it."

"We should probably stay together so we don't end up getting separated and never being able to find each other again," Alex said quietly, rubbing the sides of his arms to try to warm himself up a little bit due to the cold air that seemed to be shifting around everyone.

"Got the plan down, so one more question, which way do we go? Left or right? North East South West?" Jaime asked pointing out each direction as he said it.

"We could try going out into the woods, we were all walking in opposite directions on the road. Someone would have probably noticed something, right?" Vic suggested.

"And maybe find somewhere warmer than here," Alex shivered a little as if proving his point.

"I'm with you on that one," Tony squeezed his arms closer to himself, "I swear it fucking dropped fifty degrees since we first began standing here."

They all gave one last shiver before they began moving into the trees. They must have searched for about a half an hour before they started splitting up and searching the general area, careful to not stray too far from where they all split up at.

"Hang on," Rian stopped Alex in his tracks, "Stay here, I'll be right back."

Alex was just about to ask Rian 'where are you going' but he disappeared before Alex could make anything come out. So he stood next to the old mossy tree that he stopped by. The tree was big enough for him to stand behind it without being seen from the other side. Patiently he waited for Rian to return from whatever he wanted to go do on his own. He looked down at his palm where a fresh red mark was layered across the skin. Not too long ago he unknowingly grabbed a spiked branch that was in his way, he must have grabbed down on it a little too hard because it left a pretty good mark. Alex suddenly felt a cold hand on his shoulder that sent a cold rush down his spine. The hand felt far colder than the air surrounding him so he spun around to see what it was. At the sight of what was behind him, Alex's eye's widened and his mouth hung open. For a moment he thought he was dreaming. "What's the matter Alex?" it asked, "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Jack,"  gasped, "What...I thought you were dead! I s...I saw you die."

Jack shrugged looking clueless, "Who knows what's going on. Maybe i'm a ghost who's coming to haunt you for the rest of your life and annoy you from beyond the grave."

"Jack..." Alex started, his eyes growing sad hoping that Jack didn't get stuck here somehow just so he could haunt him.

"Or!" Jack interrupted putting his hands up.

"Or?"

"Or maybe I'm just a figment of your imagination," Jack whispered placing a finger on the side of Alex's forehead.

"So, in other words, you're saying I've gone crazy?" Alex frowned.

"I don't know," Jack dropped his hands back down to his side, "You  _have_ been through some tough shit lately so maybe it sparked something, or maybe I am just a ghost. Think I can fly? How awesome would that be!?"

Alex rolled his eyes then thought about the first part of what Jack said to him. "Maybe it did spark something and I've gone insane," he mumbled looking down at the ground, shoulders drooping.

"Hey, come on, we can get though this together," Jack urged, "I'm here now aren't I?"

"Not really," Alex said quietly then looked back up at Jack, "Besides, if the other guys hear me talking to a tree then they'll know that I've lost my marbles."

"I'm not a tree though," Jack said examining his arms.

"Well that's what they'll think since they won't be able to see you," Alex said looking around to make sure Rian wasn't standing somewhere listening.

"In that case I'll be sure to annoy the hell out of you just because of those reasons," Jack smirked.

"Come on Jack," Alex glared, "Don't be an asshole from beyond the grave."

Jack pretended to look hurt at Alex's words. "I'm not taking this from you anymore. I just can't," Alex turned away and began walking in the opposite direction.  _Not anymore._

"Alex," Jack whined, not moving from where he was standing.

Alex shook his head and continued walking away. "Where are you going? I said to say here, that way you wouldn't end up getting lost," Rian said appearing out of the trees.

"Uh," Alex slowly turned back around, a little relieved to see that Jack was no longer standing in view. "Making sure you didn't get fall in a pit or something. You  _were_  kind of gone for a long time, I think..."

Rian slowly nodded, knowing he wasn't going to get the whole truth, if any at all, but decided not to push it farther. "Apparently the other guys grouped up again so they had me come back to get you instead of leaving you behind," he said pointing his thumb behind him.

"Oh, that's sure nice of them," Alex snorted, walking forward towards Rian.

"Yeah, it would sure be mean of them to just abandon you out here," Rian agreed leading the way to where the other four were.

Alex nodded and after a minute of walking they heard Jaime's voice echo through the trees, "Hey Tony look, one of your little buddies are crawling around over here!"

"I know, I've seen a few turtles crawling around already," Tony was saying as Rian and Alex reignited with the rest of the group.

"Found him," Rian said motioning towards Alex.

"Good," Vic said, "So what's the status report, anybody find anything?"

"A fence," Jaime immediatly said, "A huge fence stretching out as far as I could see. It was huge, right Tony?"

"Yup," Tony acknowleged halfheartedly, "Giant fence."

"Hopefully that doesn't mean we're caged in here until we find the road again," Mike said.

"Or maybe they're all being lead into some big trap," Alex heard someone softly say next to him.

He looked over and saw Jack standing next to him with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. "Please, leave me alone," Alex quietly pled, looking down at the ground once more, squeezing his eyes shut hoping Jack would be gone when he opens them up.

In some way, Alex thinks he should be at least a little happy that he can talk to Jack again, even if it isn't the real Jack. "Wait, what?" Vic looked over at Alex thinking that he heard something.

Alex quickly reopened his eyes and looked up at Vic. "Nothing," he tried making his voice and face seem rather confused.

"Oh, sorry," Vic shook his head a bit, "Thought I heard something."

"You're such a liar, Alex," Jack scolded.

He had to choke back any sort of response at those words, the very set of words that has been haunting his thoughts since the death of his friend. The last real words that Jack had said to him, and right there, he repeated them, only more clearly now, haunting his head once more. "Wait, everyone be quiet," Mike whispered interrupting Alex's thoughts.

The air around the group of six fell a dead silence listening to a crunching noise that was playing though out the forest. Someone was coming.

"Hey boys," it said coming out from the plants, a snarl lingered in its voice yet a wide smile was spread across its face, "You miss me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose I haven't been saying this but tell me what you think, it means a lot that there's actually people reading it and all :)


	5. Chapter 5

All six of them stood and stared at who it was that appeared out of the line of trees. "Truthfully," Jaime started, his voice shaking slightly, "it all depends on which version of _Zack_ you are at the moment. Are you the regular Zack we started with on tour or the Zack who killed Jack?"

"Oh that's right," Zack's eyes widened for a brief moment, "Jack wasn't around long enough to let my secret escape into your ears."

"What secret? You finally came out of the closet?" Mike joked.

Zack snorted, "You wish that's what the secret is, don't you Mike? If I to share the secret in our little trust circle that we all built up here then every single one of you would be set in line for your very own death sentence."

"That's why you killed Jack, wasn't it?" Alex looked up trying to piece the puzzle together.

"What makes you think that?" Zack asked.

"Because," Alex looked down again, "He can get demanding about finding out information at times."

Zack nodded, "I found that indeed to be true. Don't get me wrong, I warned him that once he knew he'd be just throwing his life away, literally. But still he pushed on to find out the truth."

"He's right, it is a pretty big secret," Jack whispered to Alex, "A shame I wasn't still creeping about to tell you it."

"Why exactly would finding it out be a death sentence?" Tony asked raising an eyebrow.

"It just it," Zack shrugged, "Can't have anyone finding out the truth and going to run off and spread it around. That's how the legends get started and that's how they find a way to stop me."

"Trouble is, there's one of you and six of us," Vic pointed out. "If you were to tell us all, sure you could kill one or two more of us, but who says that we aren't going to try and kill you right back."

"Oh, but you wouldn't want to kill Zack here, would you now?" Zack attempted to make a sad face.

"Maybe Vic would if he sees you going after any more of his friends," Vic growled, narrowing his eyes.

"Come on, Victor," Zack chuckled, "I don't think you would even have it in you to do something like that."

"There's a first time for everything," Vic continued, his voice growing harsher.

"Hm, we'll have to find that out one day," Zack smiled again, "You guys seem like you really want to know that secret though, don't you."

"Isn't that why you're here? To tell us your 'little secret', or are you just coming to kill us all?" Rian asked.

"Maybe I will tell you the secret."

"Tell us then," Tony insisted, "Good luck in trying to kill us all off."

"Fine," Zack shrugged pulling out a revolver from what seemed like nowhere, "Then after story time we can play a good old fashioned game of Russian Roulette, but only I get to make the shots."

"That could increase the body count if you don't all get your asses out of here in time," Jack whispered.

"Should I sneak away then?" Alex whispered back as quietly as possible.

"Then you couldn't get to learn the holy grail of secrets, or at least that's what Zack would like you all to think," Jack trailed on, "You can run away if you want but if you stay just remember what Zack once said, curiosity killed the cat."

_Again with the phrases_ Alex though looking down at the ground remembering what Zack said to him a while ago.

"Alex," Zack said nicely, everyone's eyes turning to where Alex stood. "Talking to yourself or is someone else with us?"

Five sets of eyes burning into Alex, curious and worries expressions plagued their faces. "Of course I'm talking to someone, there's six of you here, not counting me, and guess what, we're all talking to each other!"

"Wow thanks," Jack frowned, crossing his arms, "nice to know that I'm included in here."

Alex rolled his eyes adding to the groups confusion. "See, right their," Zack pointed at him, clearly amused by the situation, "they're here, aren't they? Or maybe it's just one person that's here."

"Alex, what's he talking about?" Rian asked, obviously confused as everyone else.

"I don't know," Alex lied, "He's probably just trying to distract us."

"Believe what you want Alex, but some how they'll find out the truth about what's going on in that little head of yours," Zack smirked.

"No one can find out the truth about something that isn't real or ever happened," Alex rose his voice a bit, hoping that he could convince everyone that there wasn't anyone that they can't see that's lingering around here.

"Holy shit, Alex," Jack chuckled, "You're on quite the lying streak today. Better be careful or your nose just might grow a food."

"True," Zack agreed, "But will that statement work in this case?"

"Of course it will," Alex snapped, "There is  _nothing_ going on with me that isn't normal."

"No need to be pushy. Seeing an invisible person a little while after one of your best friends have died is completely normal," Zack put his hands up in front of himself as if surrendering.

"No no, he didn't just die, you murdered him," Alex hissed though gritted teeth, "And I'm  _not_ seeing any invisible people!"

"Don't lie, you're seeing at least one invisible person, am I right?" Zack asked still sounding calm.

"No," Alex snarled.

"Yes," Jack said at the same time as Alex.

Alex's gaze flickered over to his left for a split second then back at Zack and the others. "If you say so," Zack shrugged, "But enough about Alex, let's talk about the fun parts of our little story we have going on right now."

"You mean the parts where you let us go and everything can go back to normal?" Jaime clasped his hands together and smiled hoping that Zack just might let it happened.

"You only wish," Zack returned his smile, "But like I said before, we're going to be playing the game that'll kick start all the fun."

"Yeah, let's start and I say that I'll be the one to call the shots," Vic sneered pointing the barrel of the gun Zack had moments ago to the side of Zack's head.

"I thought we've been over this Vic," the gun pointing at his head not fazing him at all, "You don't have it in you to pull the trigger. Besides, I've done nothing to you."

"Not yet, and I'm also thinking that you're not really Zack. Maybe some fucked up version of him, but not really Zack," Vic said still holding up the revolver.

"That all you got or you still have more thoughts about what's going on?"

"Haven't got it all figured out yet."

"How about an exchange, I'll give you the info in exchange or your life," Zack bargained.

"Tempting, but how about you tell me then I'll pull the trigger, splattering your brains all over the forest," Vic said pressing the barrel a little more into the side of his head.

"Ew," Jack wrinkled his nose.

"Shoot me if you want but it won't resolve in anything," Zack said calmly looking around the small crowd of five listening in on every word being said.

"It'll resolve in you being dead and us not having to worry about some psychopath trying to kill us anymore," Vic said.

"Thing is," Zack closed his eyes for a moment, "I've only killed Jack, well, as far as you know. If you were to pull the trigger, you're no better then me for taking someones life."

For some reason the words struck through Vic's mind and he struggled to keep the weapon pressed up against Zack's head and his finger slowly started to creep off the trigger. "Come on Vic, don't bail out now," Mike warned, "He's  just trying to trick you."

"I...I cant..." Vic whispered lowering the gun.

Zack knew he would end up bailing so he took his opportunity to seize the gun out of Vic's hand and strap one arm across Vic's neck and the other hand was used to hold the gun up to the side of Vic's head, the same place where it was placed to his own head moments before. "Don't you know you shouldn't turn your back o n the person you're fighting with?" Zack calmly whispered into Vic's ear.

"Now," Zack looked up at everyone else, talking loud enough so they all could hear perfectly, "I'm going to take Vic back with me somewhere else in these god forsaken woods. Follow us, Vic dies. Try to kill me, Vic dies. Try and block us from getting anywhere, Vic dies. Do  _anything at all_ that could be a threat to me getting him where we're going, Vic dies. Do I make myself clear?"

"So, what you're basically saying," Mike began, ignoring his brother shaking his head for him to stop talking, "You need us to leave you guys alone so you can have a little 'alone time'. Maybe rustle up the old pine needles if ya know what I'm saying."

"Funny," Zack said pointing the gun at Mike, shooting him in harm before anyone could do or say anything else, "But you shouldn't be making jokes like that when your brother's life is on the line."

"Son of a bitch," Mike hissed, squeezing his hand over the bullet hole trying to stop the bleeding.

"Anyone else wish to add to the conversation?" Zack asked rotating the gun around at the group of people.

"Hey Alex," Jack whispered, "Tell him to take a swan dive off the Grand Canyon."

Alex drew in a quick breath, amazing that Jack would even say something like that in this period of time, even if Jack was all in his mind right now.

"Good," Zack said returning the barrel of the gun back to Vic's head. "Here we go, backwards steps now. Can't turn our backs on them, don't know what they might do."

The two of them started backing further into the woods then they stopped. Zack looked over at Mike and said, "Oh, and Mike. Make sure you get something to clean that up with. Wouldn't want your arm to get infected and have to cut it off. Might affect your drumming."

"I have a better suggestion, why don't you go fuck yourself," Mike growled as Zack and his hostage began walking backwards again until they were out of view.

-*-*-

"Now that we're far enough away from them...I need you," Zack slammed Vic's back against a tree using one hand to cover his mouth and the other to keep the gun positioned at the side of his head, "for my plan that is."

"What plan?" Vic tried to say behind Zack's hand.

"The plan where you become my new host. Those guys back their, they trust you  _far_  more then they trust me, or should I say Zack," he answered adding to Vic's confusion with every word he says.

"What?" Vic mumbled trying to pry Zack's hand away from his mouth.

"Let's see, I'll start with you're right, I'm not really Zack. I'm controlling him, plugged into his brain like a nasty virus, just like I'm going to do to you."

Zack's hand tightened around Vic's mouth as he tried to get away. Zack's face then went blank as something began squirming out of his eye. It looked like a gross between a leach and a tapeworm, leaving a grayish-red trail of slime behind as it worked it's way down Zack's face, across his arm then onto Vic's face. The closer and closer it got, the more and more Vic struggled to get free. He tried yelling for help, or for whatever it was that is creeping up his face to get away, but nothing worked. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, the parasite managed to get access to behind Vic's eyelid. Seconds later that seemed like years to Vic, he was no longer in control. Zack collapsed to the ground and Vic took the gun that Zack was still holding. "What...Vic what are you doing? How'd I get here?" Zack, the real Zack, looked around trying to make scene of everything, his voice raspy as if he hasn't spoken in weeks.

"Shh shh shh," Vic quickly silenced, crouching down and putting the barrel of the gun under Zack's chin.

"Vic! What the fuck are you doing?" Zack shouted trying to squirm away but was stopped by the tree behind him.

"So long soldier," Vic whispered then pulled the trigger before Zack could make out any more words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh dear, I seemed to have killed another character off, so sorry guys :[


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I haven't updated in a while :s got busy doing other stuff (I also kidna forgot about this)  
> so anyways, here it is, chapter 6 ^u^

"Should...should we go after them?" Jaime asked still looking out into the gap whee Zack and Vic disappeared.

Tony looked up from trying to help Mike wrap up the wound the bullet left not too long ago, "Weren't you even listening to him?"

"Yeah but..." Jaime started, turning his head to look over at Tony.

"Unless you  _want_ Vic to end up dead, if not then you should stay here," Rian interrupted.

"Maybe some of you guys should be doing some kind of sneaky secret agent stuff," Jack said while rolling a small rock around in his hand, "Everyone leaping around in the trees like monkeys to rescue Vic from the mean old man."

Alex turned and looked at Jack, not saying anything to him due to someone possibly hearing him talk to basically nothing. After all, Zack kinda put it out in the open that (as far as everyone else's point of view) he might be going  a little crazy, seeing people that isn't really their.  And knowing them, they're probably still pretty curious about finding out if it's true or not. "Come on," Jack pushed on, "Don't say that it wouldn't be fun. Going out into stealth mode high up in the trees."

Jack stared at Alex, waiting for him to make any response. Eventually Alex turned away, hoping that jack wouldn't continue on with his constant rambling. But then again, it was Jack. "Alex. Come on Alex. I know you know that I know you know it would be fun. So therefore it must be true that you know it would in fact be fun."

"Go away," Alex whispered without runing to Jack.

"But Alex, I know that you know that I know you wouldn't want that. We can stay together like the buddies that we are and stay up to the wee hours of the night and talk about sail boats and paint eachothers toenails while we sit in a big giant dome filled with fluffy bunnies and unicorns and eat pistashios until we die!" the pictch of his voice begain rising almost halfway through. By the time he stopped talking it sounded like a cat was dragging it's claws agaisnt a chalkboard.

"Oh my God, will you please just shut the fuck up," Alex snapped, saying that a little bit louder than he should have.

All four heads turned to Alex and were looking at him as if he strangled a puppy. " I...I'm...I'm sorry," Jaime stammered sounding a bit hurt.

"No, it's not you Jaime, it's..." he looked over at Jack but remembered that no one else could see him, "It's not you, it's nobody. Just nevermind, forget it. I'm sorrry."

Alex looked back down at the ground trying to avoid the pairs of eyes that were drilling into his head, silently demanding for more information. Jaime started saying something but Alex wasn't paying enough attention to catch it. He turned around shaking his head and started walking away from the other for as quickly as he could. "Alex," someone called from behind but again, he wasn't paying enough attention to know who's voice it belonged to.

With his hands stuffed into his sweater pockets, Alex just kept on walking. Careful to avoid tripping over anything orbeing smacked in the face by a low hanging branch.  "Alex?" he heard someone ask from behind him after what seemed like an hours of silence.

"What?" Alex spat turning around to see Vic standing behind him, "Vic?"

"I um...did something happen while I was gone?" Vic asked confused.

"It's nothing," he waved the question away.

"Alright, nice to know I guess. So where are the rest of the guys?" Vic asked turning his head around to see if he could spot anyone else.

"Uh, they're back that way somewhere," Alex pointed towards the way he came from. "Hey, how did you get away anyways? Zack had a gun to your head. It's kinda hard to get out of that."

"Outsmarted him? I'm not really sure," Vic shrugged giving a nervous laugh.

"Wait, did Zack tell you his  _special_ secret?" Alex asked. curious to know if it was truly a 'secret worth dying for'.

"Nah," Vic shook his head, "Got away before he could tell me."

"Hm, that's a shame, yet good, that way he wouldn't be out to slaughter you any quicker for knowing his beloved little secret," Alex snorted.

"But," Vic looked directly at Alex, a dull light appeared to flash through his eyes, or maybe it was just his imagination, "If you really want to know, maybe I would find a way to tell you. Though the prosses _is_  still in beta."

"Is it me, or is there something different about Vic?" Jac thought out loud studying Vic with a finger on his chin, "Maybe he got a new haircut."

"What do you mean 'still in beta'?" Alex asked, maybe Jack was right about something being off about Vic.

"I guess you could say that I've evolved into something more than before," Vic started peeling off some bark by a near by tree.

"Evolved? What are you talking? W-are you saying that you have superpowers or something?" Alex asked, hoping that Zack didn't end up fucking up Vic's head.

"Or something," Vic answered not turning away from the tree.

"Maybe you should start walking away again. Maybe you'll meet up with a penguin this time!" Jack clasped his heands together at the wonderful possibilities.

"Well, that sounds interesting and all, but I think I should be going," Alex said nervously taking a step back.

"What's the rush?" Vic turned to Alex and grabbed a whold of his wrist so he couldn't escape.

"There's this...uh...thing I have to go do and...ya know. The other guys...kinda s...sent me out to go...uh...do the thing...so..." Alex rambled on unsure of where he was exactly going with this excuse.

"I by it," Jack shrugged, "Gotta do the thing for they guys or else bad shit might go down."

"I'm sure they'll understand if you're a bit late on sucseeding their plan," obviously he didn't by it but it was worth a shot, right?

"Could...you at least let my arm go?" Alex asked trying to pull out of Vic's grasp.

"If I let you go then you'll run away," Vic said it like it was the most obvious thing ever, which it was.

"OK look," Alex kept pulling on his arm, unsure of how Vic could even hold onto his wrist so tightly, "Let me go and I...I promise I won't run off, alright? I jsut don't want the circulation cut off to my arm."

"Something is telling me not to believe you," Vic amost sang and gripped onto his wrist a little tighter.

"Ow. Please Vic, let me go. At this rate it seems like you're trying to squeeze my hand off, please just let go or at least loosen up your grip a little," Alex begged, his wrist feeling like a pile of bricks were resting on it.

"Why?" Vic asked, still not loosening the grip.

"Why?" Alex looked up at him, stunned that he would even ask such a thing, stunned that this is even happening! "Maybe because we're  _friends_ and  _friends_ don't usually break other friends body parts."

" _Usually_ that's the key word here my friend,  _usually,_ " Vic pointed out.

"Yeah, nice to know that you can point out key words, but please, let me go," Alex whined.

"That's no fun, just giving up like that," Vic frowned. "I want to see how much of it you can take before I end up breaking you."

"Alright, this is starting to sound more and more like a porno," Jack laughed, "Whatever you do, don't start moaning."

Alex glared at Jack, warning him to stop. "Is your imaginary friend here/ Vic asked with fake enthusiasm.

"Of course not," Alex hissed, "I don't have an imaginary friend."

"Oh yeah, don't worry about me. I'm getting to the point where I don't even care if you don't count me as your friend anymore," Jack looked away wiping away a fake tear.

"You can't fool me; I know you're seeing someone. But I just can't figur out  _who_ it is that you're seeing," Vic squinted his eyes, trying to see if he could focus hard enough and see what Alex was seeing.

"Good luck trying to figure it out," Alex said.

"That sounds like a challenge, but you don't you tell me who it is to make everything a bit easier," Vic whispered.

"No," Alex whispered back.

Vic said nothing, he just continued to squeeze the life out of Alex's wrist hoping that an answer would come out. But Alex stuck it through, he his lip, despertely tring to not make any noise as the pain was shoothing though his body. Not too long afterwards a snapping sound echoed around them. "God damn it Vic!" Alex let out a cry of agony, trying to get free more then ever, ignoring the pain that was now pouring though his arm. "You just broke my fucking wist! Let me go!"

"Believe me, I know," Vic looked him directly in the eyes and said as calmly as ever, "Tell me who you're seeing and I'll let you go."

"Fuck you, I wouldn't tell you anything anymore, even  _if_ you were about to kill me," Alex said through clenched teeth.

"Something tells me that you should't have said that," Jack shook his head.

Vic laughed, "That can be arranged."

"What happened to you man? Did Zack do something to your head before you got away?" Alex asked as calm as he could possibly manage at this point.

"Zack?" Vic asked as if he had no idea who anyone named Zack was, "Zack did nothing to me...per say."

"So he did do something! God damn it. Come on Vic, whatever it is, hypnotism, head injurym whatever, you can make it past it. Whatever it is, break free!"

"It's not that simple Alex. To regain control, you have to have a little to start out with, which Zack had none of," Vic's eyes widened like he was surprised by his own words.

"He...he didn't?" Alex whispered.

"No!" Vic shouteed, completely unnecessary due to the fact Vic was sill holding onto Alex so they were only about three feet, max, away from each other.  "Did you really think that he would be doing what he did if he  _was_ in control?"

"Of course not!" Alex yelled back defensively, "We all knew something had to be wrong with him for doing all that he did."

Vic brought his face closer to Alex, but when Vic started moving his face closer Alex heard Jack whisper, "Oh, he's gonna kiss you Alex. He's getting pretty close to you."

"Did you really? Cause I though you all said he went crazy, not something happened to him," Vic stated very quietly.

"Yeah, but isn't that the same thing, going crazy and having no control?" Alex questioned, once again ignoreing Jack.

"No!" Vic barked, throwing Alex down to the ground like a rag doll, "When you're crazy there's still hope that you can change, get back to whatever normal is classified as these days. But  once you lost control, lost your mind, then all hope for recovery has fled the universe."

"So what about you?" Alex wheezed after pushing himself up with is good hand into some sort of sitting position.

"What about me?" Vic asked quickly.

"What have we been talking about? Have you lost control or have you gone crazy?" Alex looked up at hem, still trying to balance himself out.

"Oh that," Vic said like he was being reminded about a forgotten important event that was happening today, "Vic's lost control, he isn't coming back."

Alex narroweed his eyes tring to sort through what Vic just said, "What's up with the bad guys today talking in third person?"

"Whoops," Vic sheepishly covered his mouth, "Looks like I can't keep secrets as good as we all though."

"What secret?" Alex demanded. "You don't mean the secret that once would have to be killed once they knew, do you?"

"How about a trade, tell me who you're seeing and I'll tell you my secret," Vic repeated the question from before.

"Why do you even want to know this so bad?" Alex asked.

"Checkpoints must be unlocked to fully access a crazy person's mind," Vic answered while tapping the side of his head ever so lighly.

"Thing is, I'm not crazy, so you can't do anything with my mind," Alex said, trying to stand back up.

"One, stay down or I'll cripple you so you can't get up," Vic said darkly, "Two, it's impossible to say that you're not crazy because somehow everyone's insane. For some it's easier to spot and other keep it more well hidden."

"Interesting. And about the first part, how about instead of standing or sitting, I'll just walk away, alrigth? That way neither of us will have to deal with any of this," Alex began taking a few steps backwards.

"Fine, turn around and walk away. Go back to your friends," Vic waved his hand signaling for him to go.

When Alex started walking off he heard a branch snap off somewhere behind him. He decided to ignore it, thinking it was just one of Jack's annoying antics. As he kept walking, Alex felt something hit against the back of his legs causing him to loose balance an fall back down on the ground. He turned himself around and saw Vic standing above him holding a large broken off branch in his hands as if they were a baseball bat. "Don't you know you souldn't turn your back on the person you're fighting with?" Jack and Vic both said simultaneously.

Before Alex could make out any more words the branch that was used to knock him down was forced right through his leg above the knee, staking his leg to the ground. Alex yelled out something that was nearly impossible to translate as Vic took a step back. "Now tell me Alex, who are you seeing?" Vic asked.

"It...it'll be a cold day in hell," Alex paused for a moment to adapt to the pain surging through is entire body, "When I tell you anything anymore."

"You say that now," Vic sneered, grabing a hold of the branch with one hand and giving it a quick twist, "But I'll get it wout of you somehow. Even if I have to into your head and pull it out myself."

"Good luck," Alex gasped once the branch became still under Vic's hand.

"But," Vic put a finger up, "That'll be a last resort. Too much to have to do with that prosses. Get out of his mind, go into yours, extract the information then craw back into this brain. Too much of a hassle."

"P...poor you," Alex criticized, "Having to do extra work on...your assassination plan."

"It  _would_ go a lot easier if you'd just couporate," Vic shrugged.

"Where's the challange in that?"

"That's true, more chances to think up more torturing technikes," Vic smirked. "Might become useful on someone else some day."

"Come on Vic," Alex spoke a little quieter, "You don't want to do that."

"Haven't I told you already? Vic has his mind so I can do whatever the  _fuck_ I want to do,  _nothing_ is making me to stop," Vic laughed.

"What about me?" Alex paused for a moment, "I'm telling you to stop."

"You?" he gave another laugh as he looked Alex over, "What could you possibly do besides wallow in pain and beg for me to let you go?"

"You have to say 'pretty please will you let me go dungeon master?'" Jack said now sitting pretzel legged next to Alex.

"How about not," Alex whispered turning to Jack.  _Fuck it_ Alex thought  _Vic already knows that I'm talking to someone who only I can see so why try and hid it now?_

"OK fine," Jack rolled his eyes, "Then jsut say 'pretty please', things always go better when you say pretty please."

"Not always," Alex slightly shook his head, "Some people are stuck up bastards who won't let you go out to freedom just by going 'pretty please'."

"Maybe you should listen tooo..." Vic extended the o for Alex to add onto his sentence with the answer he was craving for.

"Jack," Jack answered for him. "Wait, he can't hear me, Alex you gotta say Jack. I feel it in my piggy toes that that's what he want's you to say. I can just  _feel_ it."

"Spongebob," Alex answered Vic coldly.

"That's not my name," Jack whined, "I'm not a hamburger flipping sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea."

"Oh yeah, good one," Vic rolled his eyes this time, "It could be possible though. Someone like you with such a childish mind."

"I think," Alex winced at the pain when he tried to pull the stick out of his leg with his one good hand, the pinned down leg seemed to be growing so much more numb as the seconds ticked by, "That you're confusing me with Jack."

"That's hurtful," Jack thought for a moment, "But true."

"What? You want that out?" Vic asked noticing Alex trying to get the branch out.

"No," Alex said sarcastically, "I want it to stay in my leg so I can become one with the surroundings and hopefully one day have a bed of flowers growing on my corpse."

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere here," Vic scolded, "But tell me who your friend is and I'll let your leg run free once more."

"I'd rather sit here and rot then tell you so you can take control of my head or whatever the hell you plan on doing," Alex growled.

"Then I'll guess who it is," Vic flashed a smile.

"Go ahead, you're probably not going to get it right."

"You wanna bet?" Vic tilted his head to the side.

"Depends on what you're offering," Alex looked directly at him.

Vic shrugged, "If I guess wrong on the first guess, I'll let you go. But...if I guess right on the first time, I get to take control of that precious little mind of yours."

"Deal," Alex said confidently, saying to himself that Vic would never be able to guess the right answer on the first guess.

At least he hoped that Vic wouldn't guess it right...

"Your friend," Vic pointed next to where Alex turned to talk to Jack before, "Must have been close to you or why else would your mind cast 'em out? They must have died recently too or else who weird would that be, seeing two of the same people, or seeing someone you don't even know!"

"That would be pretty weird," Jack leaned to the side looking back at Alex.

"Further more," Vic began pacing as he rambled on, "This friednd, if it is the one that died recently, you may have had to witness the death. How violent it must have been though, to leave such a scar on your mind that will enable you to see them in this so-called reality. Of course this friends, the death must have indeed been quite drastic, I did kill him after all. Through Zack's eyes, I saw you rust towards him when he was down."

"Stop!" Alex shouted, bewildered by what he was hearing, blinking away any tears that were forming from the memory when Jack died.

"Why? I was _just_ getting to the good part," Vic asked.

"The good part!? Why the fuck do you mean 'you killed Jack'" he tried to stand up, ready to strangle Vic, watch him choke to death under his hands but was shot back down due to the branch that was still painfully lodged into his leg. But there was far too much adrenaline rushing through his veins right now to even care about that. "You controlled him just so he could get rid of us, didn't you? What happened to us all being friends? Isn't that why we started this tour, because we're all friends? Is it just you or is the other guys in your band like this too? By now they've probably killed Rian! You know what? Fuck you. Fuck Pierce The Veil. And fuck this branch stuck in my fucking leg. I don't care how much it'll hurt, i'm going to fucking yank it out."

"You're going to end up ruing your leg though. So much more blood flowing out from your boo-boo," Jack said pointing at where the branch was stuck in his leg with drying blood starting to cake around the side of it and flowing to the ground.

"You know what Jack, I don't even  _fucking_ care anymore," Alex growled as e began yanking the branch further out of his leg.

"Potty mouth," Jack turned away, crossing his arms.

Vic grinned, he finally got the information out of him, "So I was right!" He took a step foreward once Alex threw the branch to the side, now gripping the spot of his leg that was draining out in an effort to stop the bleeding.

"About what?" he snapped starting to stand up, pushing himself up with his good arm.

"About it being Jack, I just needed you to admit it," Vic said, his smile growing crookeder.

"Well congradulations to you, looks like you got me. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to let you take control of my mind," Alex talked and limped foreward towards Vic until he was less than a foot away, "Not with you still breathing."

Vic laughed leaning closer, remaining silence for a few more seconds. "Somebody doesn't understand the meanign of one's personal bubble," Jack whispered now standing next to Alex.

"Aren't you making it a bit hard to keep that promise to yourself if you're six inches from me?" Vic asked seconds later after Jack inished his coment.

"Not if I knock you out first," Alex fisted up his good hand and swung it at Vic's face.

Vic rose his hand and caught Alex's fist in mid swing, gripping it like a ball that was thrown at him. "Shhh," Vic sillenced him, "There will be no more time for that. Just stay calm, wouldn't want this process to go bad."

Alex found that he couldn't break fre from Vic's gaze. Something seemed to be forcing his eyes open and his head locked in once spot. Then he felt it, the fleeding seemed to stop and the numbness that was in his leg began creeping up through his whole body. It felt as if he was paralyzed, but still able to stand. The voice in his head that says his thoughs was being silenced and replaced by Vic's voice.  _This wasn't so hard, now was it?_ the voice said.


	7. Chapter 7

"We better find him before Zack does or god knows what'll happen to him," Tony said referring to Alex's disappearance.

"What about Vic?" Mike turned around facing Tony, "What are we going to do about him? We can't just  _leave_ him out their."

"We don't even know where they went! You heard the gun shot, he could be dead for all we know," Tony said looking right at Mike.

"Don't you dare say that," Mike growled, ready to beat the shit out of him for even thinking that was a possibility. "He could have gotten away. You can't just give up on him like that."

"Come on guys, don't fight," Jaime tried breaking off the fight, "We need to find Alex  _and_ Vic, no one's giving up hope on either."

"We just have to keep in mind what Zack is capable of and find them as quickly as possible," Rian added.

"Alright, let's just...keep looking," Mike shook his head, trying to calm himself down.

-*-*-

"Alex?" Jack waved his hand in front of his friends face, "Come on, say  _something_. The party ain't over yet."

Alex stood motionless, his eyes remained unblinking as he looked straight at Vic who seemed to be marveling over his work. "This went better than I thought it would," Vic said softly, starting to circle Alex but stopped a few steps later.

"What did you expect would happen? Alex would end up blowing up?" Jack sneered to himself.

"Of course not, brain dead at the most. Once the brain goes dead it's completely useless to me," Vic responded still looking at Alex who hasn't showed any sence of life since Vic took over his mind.

"Wait," Jack looked directly at Vic and asked slowly, "How can you hear me? Only Alex could see this version of me."

"He was, but remember I tapped into his head so I can now see you as well," Vic explained.

"Oh," Jack rose his chin up and then smirked as an idea passed though his head, "That means that I can annoy the fuck out of you until you end up snapping too then."

"That's highly unlikely because I can silence you from my head and send you straight back to the hazy hell hole that's Alex's mind any time I want, why don't I show you?" proving his point, Vic snapped his fingers causing Jack's image to flicker away from his view.

"Well this is no fun," Jack pouted looking at his hands, seeing the ground right through them. "Now who am I suppose to talk to?"

"Now Jack," Vic looked in Jack's general direction. "I can't see you now, but I know you can see me. Whatever is going on with you right now, whether you're missing legs or nearly invisible or maybe you're still looking the same. But whatever the case may be, just know that half of the hallucination you is trapped inside my head, caged off whenever I don't want to see you around. So good luck with Alex because he isn't going to do or say anything unless I construct him to."

"Come on Alex, you don't have to be like this, maybe Vic can't snap out of it but I know you can, somewhere in that head of yours you're still in there, hearing everything I'm saying to you," Jack plead looking into Ale'x blank expression, ignoring Vic's statement about not being able to make Alex talk.

"Say something, do something, blink for god sake, show me that you're still with us!" Jack shouted after a few seconds of just looking at Alex. He reached out to pull on Alex's arm, hoping that would get his attention somehow but only to find out that his hand went right trough as if Alex was just a hologram himself.

Jack quickly withdrew his hand and looked down at it, "What...I'm not a ghost...in this form I'm not even real but I've been able to at least poke him before..."he looked up at Alex, at Vic who was doing something with his phone, then back at his hand. Jack walked over to Vic and tried to grab his arm, only to have the same result he had with Alex. "What the fuck is going on with me? I've never had this problem before. This must be why ghosts get so pissed off, they can't even tough anything without falling though it."

"Come on Alex," Vic looked up putting his phone back in his pocket, "We have work to do. And remember, act normal and say exactly what you hear me tell you to say in that head of yours."

-*-*-

"Shh, do you hear that?" Jaime whispered causing everyone to stop in their tracks.

"Relax guys, it's only us," Vic grinned walking out in from of the four with his hands up and Alex carefully appearing behind him looking ahead at nothing.

Mike didn't even say anything, he just walked up to Vic and gave him the tightest hug he could manage without almost doing internal damage to him. "Look at this, someone missed me," Vic joked.

"You could have been dead," Mike said softly, pulling out of the hug.

"Yeah, but look at me now, new and improved," Vic gave another grin.

"That's nice, but what happened with Zack, we heard the gun shot and..." Mike started but was unable to finish what he wanted to say.

"Let's just say that I took care of Zack so he won't end up doing anything to anyone anymore," Vic said.

"You mean, you killed him?" Tony asked a bit shocked.

"What else was I suppose to do?" Vic shrugged.  _You all trust me more in this body anyways._

"So, Alex," Rian said approaching Alex who still hasn't looked away from whatever he was looking at. "You alright?"

"Yes, I am fine," Alex aid looking over at Rian.

"Alright, but what happened back their? You just flipped out for a moment then completely disappeared," Rian asked.

"Nothing happened this is not in control right now," Alex answered with no emotion worded in with his voice.

"That is good," Rian mimicked, "What what is with talking like this?"

"Just a change in tone," Alex said.

"You sure? You seem to be pretty out of it," Rian asked starting to get a little concerned.

"I am fine," Alex repeated.

"O...K..." Rian slowly turned away, "So now that the six of us are together, what now?"

"I'd say we should find our way out of this place, the villain of this story is gone and now we just need to pick up the pieces of what was left behind from this mess and work from there," Jaime suggested.

"How are we going to get back though? Both our buses are dead and we don't even know our way around this place," Tony stated.

"I guess we'll just just have to keep walking, the forest has to end somewhere," Vic said, contributing to the group, can't seem to suspicious now, can we?

"That's true, which direction should we go?" Mike asked.

"Any direction really, like Vic said, it has to end somewhere," Jaime said.

"Alright, let's just...walk and hope we can find a way to get past that fence Tony and Jaime said they saw before," Rian shrugged suddenly remembering when they all split up, what those two reported.

They all gave a small nod, even Alex, and started walking the way the first four were walking originally. "Hey Alex," Jaime whispered a little after they started walking again, "Are you sure you're alright? I haven't really heard you say anything since we saw you and Vic come out of the trees."

"Yes, I am fine," Alex said without turning to look at Jaime, just continued staring straight ahead.

"Are you really? I don't think I've ever really heard you say it that way. It's usually like 'yeah, I'm fine, not 'yes I am fine'," Jaime noted.

"Just a change there is nothing to worry about," Alex said, he seemed to be spacing out his words more and more.

"If...If you say so," Jaime turned away still not believing him 100%.

"Hey Vic," Mike suddenly said after walking next to his brother in silence.

"Yeah?" Vic asked turning to Mike.

"How  _did_ you manage to get away and kill him? I mean, I'm super fucking psyched to see you here, but he had a gun o your head, and...and you're here now," Mike said.

Vic shrugged, "I guess I outsmarted him. Got lucky maybe, who knows."

"I guess we'll have to add that to the list of unexplainable mysteries," Mike joked.

"Yeah," Vic said then spoke a little louder for everyone to hear, "Hey, why don't we split up, I'm sure we'll find a way out of here quicker if we separate."

"But if we split up and _do_ end up finding a way out, how long would it take for all of us to get back together?" Tony asked.

"Well, I guess we'll have to make sure we all don't stray too far from each other," Vic said.

"Fine, anyone else object on splitting up for a little?" Tony asked looking around at the other members of the group who brought no objections.

 _Remember what I told you before, act normal and don't give away our little secret,_ Vic telepathically instructed into Alex's mind.

 _Yes sir, I will do as you please,_ Alex thought and Vic hearing in on it.

_Good boy, and try talking like you used to, and use some contractions in your sentences for god sake, you sound like a fucking business letter._

_Yes sir, I'll try._

_Thank you,_ Vic thought then started to head off in a different direction than the others with Mike at his side.

"The amount of time we've been wandering around here, you'd think we'd at least know a way out by now," Mike snorted as they made their way from the group to, once again, try to find a way out of the forest that seemed to be going on forever.

"We don't really know how big this place is though, it could be miles long and we'd only be able to explore a small percentage of it. Because of how bit it is, I don't know why you guys keep agreeing split up. Someone may as just get lost and we'd never see them again," Vic began trailing off, saying random thoughts without really thinking them over.

"It was your idea to split up though..." Mike said looking over at his brother, "If you think it's such a stupid idea then why would you suggest us all go different ways?"

"To divide everyone off, a strategy of war is to wait until the groups are small enough to take them over without much of a struggle from the opponent," Vic explained then turned away from the low hanging branch we was looking past, "And now, you have fallen into my little trap. Clever huh?"

"If I didn't know otherwise, I'd start to think that you're starting to act like Zack was, talking about trapping us and battles and what now," Mike said without backing away.

"What a coincidence that is, isn't it?" Vic gave a small grin.

"I'm starting to think that you didn't really get away but just killing Zack, some other shit went down that made you..." Mike waved his pointer finger around at Vic, "...whatever you are now."

"Well aren't you a smart one," Vic said impressed that he could pick that up.

"Yeah, well, I've known you all my life, plus we're in a band together, so I'd know if there was something different about you."

"What makes you think there's something different about me?" Vic tilted his head a little to the side.

Mike gave a small laugh and shook his head, "You may look like you, but you sure as hell don't act like im. At first you had me convinced but there were all those little clues all around that had me start to question if everything was really alright at the moment."

"Like what?" Vic raised an eyebrow, curious to see where he went wrong.

"I wasn't sure about this oe at first, but Alex."

"How about Alex be a clue to all this?"

"Just the way he stands around looking into nothing and I swear I haven't seen him blink yet. Almost as if he's in a trance. And then there's you, saying that exact things that would seem 'right' for someone to say."

"You could say it's, so wrong it's right," Jack appeared in Vic's line of vision, finding a crack in the door that blocked him out from Vic's mind.

Vic pierced his lips and blocked Jack out once again. "Who says those aren't symptoms of some kind of mental breakdown that he went though and that's just his way of trying to recover?"

"I don't think that's the case," Mike said taking a step forward, "What I think is that Zack did something to you and you did something to Alex. Just one big loop of messed up shit."

"Come one Mike," Vic frowned, "How could you think so poorly of your own brother?"

"My own brother wouldn't be acting this calm in a situation like this, he'd be trying his best to prove that this right here is really him, not some phony ass wannabe Vic."

"Excuse me," Vic snorted, "What do you want me to do? Show you my birth certificate?"

"No," Mike shook his head, his voice sounding like it was close to breaking, "Just look me in the eyes and tell me that you're really my brother. That your head got a little fried  through all that's happened but you'll get better. We'll all think back from all that's happened and grow so much stronger. We've lost two people from this already, don't have us loose you as well."

"That's a very heartwarming story," Vic mused, "However, you don't have to worry because  _I'm_ not the one who's going to be leaving our little trust circle, _you are._ "

"Me?" Mike raised an eyebrow, "And why would you think that?"

"Because you've figured out  _way_ too much about all this on your own. Just imagine how that's gonna feel though, being killed off by your own brother," Vic gave a small laugh, "Besides, there's plenty of things int his forest that you can 'trip' over that could lead to an 'accident'."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my goose, i'm so sorry that I haven't updated in a white, I have a few chapters already typed up I just need to edit them so until the next one comes up, injoy chapter 8 ^u^

Dispite everything that was happening, Mike refused to back down, "Alright then, go ahead and kill me, let's see how far you'll get."  
  
Vic rose his chin up and flashed Mike a devious smile, "You seem pretty sure of yourself, it seems like you could be a challenge to get rid of. This is gonna be fun."  
  
Mike watched as Vic slowly began walking towards him, "It doesn't matter what _you_  think, you're still in Vic's body, using  _his_ mind. Whatever happens here, you need him alive in order to control him."  
  
"Oh, poor little Mike, you still think you're brother is hiding up in here, don't you?" Vic frowned, showing fake sympathy.  
  
"He has to be hiding in there somewhere, and if he's hiding, he can get out somehow" Mike said a little higher than a whisper.  
  
"That's a pretty slim chance though; I've got him locked up pretty tight. It'll be nearly impossible for even an _ounce_ of him to squeeze through," Vic implied with a hint of humor lingering in his voice.  
  
"Well," Mike said with little emotion, "We'll just have to see what happens. Besides, you picked a short little shit to control, you seem to a little out matched."  
  
"That doesn't matter, all that matters is that you can out smart your opponent, besides I think I'm the one with the advantage because you wouldn't kill your own brother, now would you?" Vic asked.  
  
"You're not my brother, you may be controlling my brother, but you're not him, " Mike muttered loud enough for him to hear.  
  
"And that's all I need to push this on. You still have that hope that somehow your brother will make it out of this alive. That somehow he can be saved and you'll both make it out of this and it'll be some happy reunion full of hugs and laughs and all that other brotherly shit you two would go through. He'll over throw the new leader of his temple and cast me away but we both know the truth; none of that is _ever_ going to happen," Vic explained, grinning as he saw the rage building up in Mike as he went on.  
  
"Of course you don't know my little secret, the five little words that could change all of this," Mike said trying to remain calm, giving a small smirk when he saw Vic growing curious about those words.  
  
"And what 'five little words' are you talking about?" Vic asked stepping forwards.  
  
Mike laughed, refusing to answer. "What five little words could change all of this," Vic yelled.  
  
"What? Are you getting worried that something you can't control will happen?" Mike asked, amused by Vic's frustration.  
  
"What. Are. The. Fucking. Words." Vic hissed one word at a time.  
  
Mike smiled again before answering, "Good always triumphs over evil."  
  
"Ha," Vic laughed throwing his head back, "That's it? Those are the words that could end it all? Well you also need to lose some before you win some. And right now, you're going to be in your losing battle."  
  
"You never know what could end up happening," Mike looked around as if looking to see if something were to just pop out of the trees then back at Vic, "Something, or someone, could come out of nowhere and cause something that wasn't planned to happen."  
  
"Like what," Vic asked.  
  
"I don't know," Mike admitted looking down for a moment, "I'm still waiting for that answer."  
  
Vic looked around, half expecting something to pop out of nowhere. "While we're waiting for some savior to appear out of no where, why don't we do something to make all this waiting worth wild," Vic smirked, rubbing his hands together.  
  
"Like what?" Mike snarled, "Back sugar cookies?"  
  
"Ha ha, no," Vic laughed at first then said in a serious tone, "You'd think you'd eventually learn not to be springing out with all these smart ass comments, especially since the last time you said something like that you got a bullet in the arm."  
  
Mike swept his hand over the area the bullet pierced through, remembering the jolting pain it caused, and watching Vic, before all this hypnosis shit happened to him, being escorted away with a gun to his head. "Not so funny now, is it?" Vic asked.  
  
Mike said nothing, he just glared at Vic, refusing to hurt his brother's body, even if the thing controlling him would think differently. "Didn't think so, " Vic growled slamming his fist into Mike's face.  
  
After the fist came in contact with Mike's face, Mike began hobbling backwards, his hand covering his cheek. "Come on Mike, I thought you were going to be a worthy opponent," Vic snorted taking a step forward and grabbing Mike by the throat, "But I guess you're just as pathetic as the rest."  
  
"It beats having to kill my brother," Mike choked out, trying to adapt to the restricted amount of oxygen flowing to his lungs. He tried to get Vic's hand off his throat but it seemed like Vic's hand turned into a metal claw, impossible to rip open.  
  
"For a dead man, you seem pretty confident that something’s going to happen," Vic raised an eyebrow while still holding onto Mike's throat.  
  
"I'm not dead yet. And well," Mike paused for a moment, "I have confidence in Vic, the real Vic, that he won't allow you to do this."  
  
"And if he doesn't end up stopping it?"  
  
"Then I guess I'll be a dead man, won't I?" Mike gave a slightly nervous laugh.  
  
"You'd really let all this get that far?"  
  
"I'm not going to kill him if that's what you expect me to do."  
  
"No it's not, what I  _do_ expect you to do is to just die," Vic slowly said the last three words as he slammed the back of Mike's head on a nearby tree as the last word came out.  
  
"That was slightly painful," Mike groaned, raising his head a little off the trunk of the tree.  
  
"Only slightly? I guess I'll have to try harder next time," Vic rolled his eyes punching him right in the stomach.  
  
Mike gave a weak cough, "Is that all you really got or are you still building up your attack."  
  
"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" Vic snarled, letting go of Mike's throat, striking the side of Mike's jaw with his fist.  
  
By the time Vic stepped away, Mike's face looked like a squashed tomato. There were small globs and streams of crimson coming out of his nose and from his mouth and lip. His chest was all bruised up and he was sure that he heard a few ribs breaking along the way. "Oh yeah," Vic laughed partly to himself, pulling out a small knife that was placed in his pocket, "I forgot that I brought this with me. Just some carryon luggage from my last host."  
  
"What do you plan on doing with that? Mike choked out, cautiously watching as good as he could where Vic was swinging the blade around.  
  
"I'm planning on deciding how quickly I'm going to kill you with this. Should I be nice and kill you off nice and fast. Or maybe I should just take my time and savor ever cut into your beaten up flesh," Vic said darkly, plotting out his next move.  
  
"Hm, that sounds pretty dangerous," Mike frowned, "And painful."  
  
"You know, for all those remarks you've been making I think I _will_ make this slow. Watch you suffer nice and painful, and you know what? I think I'll have your darling big brother watch it all happen," Vic grinned, closing his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again.  
  
"So what now? Is it like I'm looking into a video camera? Hey Vic, how've you been lately?" Mike waved the best that he could.  
  
"Enough," Vic snapped.  
  
"Why?" Mike whined talking like a little kid, "I just wanted to have a nice conversation with me big brother."  
  
Vic clenched his teeth and slightly pushed the tip of the knife into the skin below Mike's ribs, "Your 'big brother' is going to wind up dead if you keep this shit up."  
  
Mike let out a silent cry as the blade penetrated his skin. "What's the matter Mike? Cat got your tongue? Or do you not want to make any sounds of agony for your brother's sake?" Vic asked, pulling the knife out of Mike's skin.  
  
"You want me to say something?" Mike gave a breathy laugh, his breathing sounded like he just got done running a marathon, "How about go to hell."  
  
"Oh, that's not a very nice thing to say. But, if you insist, I'll just take Vic here with me, I can always get another host..." Vic shrugged positioning the knife inches away from his chest, ready to inject the end of the blade into Vic's heart.  
  
"No," Mike gasped, pushing himself off the tree he was leaning against for support and grabbed Vic's wrist yanking it away from where it was positioned. "Don't you fucking dare hurt him."  
  
"Don't blame me," Vic quickly said, pushing the tip of the blade up to Mike's throat, "It was your idea."  
  
Mike rose his chin up a little farther in the air before saying anything more, "If you're going to kill me, why don't you just get it over with so you won't have to deal with me anymore."  
  
"If you insist, I'll just stand back while I watch you choke on your own blood," Vic sneered, slowly dragging the tip into the delicate skin.  
  
The trail engraved in Mike's throat didn't even go meet the middle before Vic dropped the knife at there feet and clamped onto his host's head, covering the ears. His eyes were squeezed closed and his mouth clamped shut as if he was hearing some kind of high pitched noise that only his ears could hear. "No," he hissed baking away from Mike, "This is impossible! You can't do this, you're locked up far too good for you to break free!"  
  
Vic dropped down to his knees, still covering his ears and shouting about how impossible this all is. All Mike could do was watch and try and stop the blood that was swarming out of his throat, too weak to do anything else. Eventually the shouting stopped and Vic looked up at Mike, there was tears streaming down his face, his whole body shaking as he tried to keep the monster inside him locked away. "Vic?" Mike choked, partially from the blood flowing from his throat.  
  
"Mike, you, you need to go, get up and run as far away from here, as, you can," Vic stuttered, his voice just as shaky as the rest of his body was, "Find the guys and get the hell out of here."  
  
"What about you?" Mike whispered.  
  
"Leave me, I don't know how long I can hold this thing back, so you need to get out of here, all of you," Vic repeated.  
  
"But you're..." Mike started.  
  
"Go!" Vic shouted, his voice a mixture of pain and sorrow.  
  
Mike nodded, despite everything, he had to get out of here. But Vic was his brother, his (shorter) big brother, and he couldn't just leave him but he couldn't take him with without the thing taking over him again and kill the rest of them. Slowly he stepped forward, then began backing away from Vic, hands still covering his throat. A big part of him wanted to run forward towards him, ignoring the possible threats, and another part wanted him to continue backing away. Eventually Mike turned away, he couldn't stand seeing Vic like this. When he turned away and looked in the direction he was walking backwards, he saw four figures running towards him, shouting something he couldn't quite make out.  
  
As they came closer he could make out the words, "Mike, Vic, where are you?" repeated by three different voices.  
  
Three voices? But there was four of them. Of course he couldn't think right right at the moment. Mike tried to respond but his voice barely came out as more than a whisper. He wasn't sure if the blood flow from this neck slowed down but he didn't dare to move his hand a way to find out. So instead he did the next best thing he could think of and began stumbling towards them, waving around his free hand and trying to keep himself up at the same time.  
  
Finally someone noticed him and heard them shout, "I found Mike!"  
  
Mike was on the verge of passing out from all the crimson liquid flowing of of the cut on his throat, but still he pushed on, walked on towards the person who found him. "Holy shit Mike," someone who sounded like Tony gasped, and held Mike up so he wouldn't fall over, "What the hell happened to you, it looks like you got into a fight with a bear."  
  
"Zack...didn't kill anyone...nor did...Vic," Mike whispered, avoiding Tony's question.  
  
"What are you talking about? And what happened to you throat?" Tony franticly asked slightly fulling Mike's hand away to see the damage.  
  
Two other people ran over. "What happened to him?" Jaime panicked seeing all the blood.  
  
"I don't know, he won't tell me what happened. All he said is that Zack and Vic didn't kill anyone," Tony answered, looking over at Jaime and Rian.  
  
"Who said that Vic killed someone, and where is he?" Rian asked looking directly at Mike.  
  
Mike weakly shook his head, not sure what to say.  
  
"Alright," Rian thought up a new question, "You said that Zack didn't kill anyone. How is that possible when Alex saw Zack kill Jack?"  
  
"Whatever...was in...their heads...made them..." Mike trailed off, barely  able to stay conscious.

"Come on Mike, you have to stay with up, what do you mean by 'whatever was in their heads made them'?" Tony demanded for an answer, shaking Mike's shoulder so he'd stay awake.  
  
Mike opened his mouth for a few seconds to say something but before anything could come out he was interupted by a gunshot echoing throughout the forest. "Seriously though, who the hell brough the gun?" Rian muttered, getting up to detect where the noise came from.  
  
Jaime followed after Rian while Mike and Tony trailed behind going as slow as possible so Mike wouldn't end up falling over. By the time Rian and Jaime got there, Vic was sprawled out across the ground with a small bullet hole in his head. Alex was standing not far away, still holding up the gun that he must have used to shoot him with. "Alex!" Rian's eyes were wide, "Why would you kill him? Haven't there been enough deaths today?"  
  
Jaime went over to Vic seeing if he was still alive at any chance, but he shook his head signaling that was really gone. "It was the only way," Alex whispered, still holding up the gun.  
  
"What do you mean 'it was the only way'?" Rian practically yelled, yanking the gun out of his hands.  
  
"It was the only way," Alex repeated, staring at Vic laid out across the ground, "It was the only way. It was the only way. It was the only way. It was the only way."  
  
"Stop saying that!" Now Rian shouted, trying to figure out a way to decode everything that was happening.  
  
Alex turned to Rian, his eyes showing no emotions at all. Just like they were ever since they found him with Vic before, "It was the only way."  
  
"He tried to hold it back," someone choked out behind them.  
  
"Who did? Alex?" Rian spun around facing Mike who was leaned up against Tony's side, holding himself up so he wouldn't fall over, one hand still covering his throat.  
  
Mike shook his head, "Vic. I knew he could overcome whatever it was that was controling his head, but he couldn't do it for long."  
  
"It was the only way," Alex repeated again.  
  
"What about Zack? Was he being controlled by whatever was controling Vic before?" Jaime asked rubbing one of his eyes.  
  
Mike coughed, "I think so."  
  
"We have to get out of here before, whatever it is that's been controlling them, gets into one of us next," Tony protested.  
  
Jaime Rian and Mike alll nodded, all equally eager to just get out of this nightmare.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who were recently paying attention to this, I accidentally posted chapter 10 instead of chapter 9 :s  
> So here is the real chapter 9  
> Enjoy~

"Does anyone else hear sirens?" Jaime asked breaking the silence between them all as they walked.  
  
They all stopped and carefully listened, listening for anything that wasn't usual to the surrounding forest sounds they've come accustomed to hearing ever since they left their buses. "I think I hear something," Tony admitted, hearing a very soft whining noise coming from a distance.  
  
"Come on, hopefully we can catch up to them before they get too far away," Jaime sounded relieved that he wasn't the only one hearing the noise, following after everyone else who broke into a run after hearing it too.  
  
Once they got closer, they started to hear other voices than their own. Talking. Arguing. Reporting? "How long were we gone?" Rian asked when they were able to see out into the road. There were three reporter crews scattered around the street near the parked bus as well as two police cars blocking either side of the road.  
  
"That's your bus, right?" Jaime asked Rian without turning away from the road.  
  
"Well it sure isn't yours," Rian muttered.  
  
"Didn't you say Jack..." Jaime started but trailed off not sure how to phrase it without something coming out wrong.  
  
"Yeah..." Rian whispered looking down.  
  
"So," Tony said, quickly trying to change the subject, "How are we going to make our grand entrance?"  
  
"We could just walk out in front of them and see if they notice us," Rian suggested.  
  
"Just walking out in front of them seems a lot less time consuming than trying to come up with some big spectacular plan. Besides, in case you didn't notice, Mike isn't really conscious right now," Jaime pointed out, motioning towards Mike who was still being held up by Tony.  
  
"That's true," Rian agreed, "What do you think, Alex?"  
  
"It was the only way," Alex mumbled.  
  
"Yeah, I thought you'd say that," Rian sighed, "Come on everybody, let's just get out of here."  
  
Slowly and carefully they made their way out in the open and within seconds they were greeted by a swarm of people asking them various questions such as 'what happened?' 'where's Vic and Zack?' 'who killed Jack?' 'why is Mike unconscious?' as well as tons of others that might not even have an answer to them. "Alright, everyone needs to calm the fuck down," Rian shouted silencing most of the crowd. "We'll explain everything we can, but first we need to get out of here, bring Mike to a hospital, as well as some other things."  
  
"What do you mean by 'other things'?" one of the reporters demanded, pushing her microphone in front of Rian.  
  
"That's uh...unknown information at this moment," Rian thought out loud, glancing over at Alex who was still blankly staring ahead.  
  
"Will you be informing us of any new information that has been discovered?" she asked.  
  
"Maybe," Rian answered unsure what  _will_ end up getting leaked out into the open.  
  
"But what we really need is someone to transport us to a hospital, 'cause, ya know, Mike's still unconscious over here so..." Tony interrupted, breaking everyone away from the reporters.  
  
All the people in the crowd simultaneously started shouting they'll all offer to take them to the hospital when a few police officers came over and broke apart the crowd and escorted them towards the ambulances. "Thanks," Rian said once they were far enough away from the mob of people.  
  
"No problem son," one officers said, his fluffy white mustache twitched at every word he said, "You boys probably needed a break from all this shit."  
  
"How long were we gone?" Jaime asked, watching as the medics loaded Mike onto a stretcher.  
  
"Since you didn't show up to that little show of yours?" he asked and Jaime nodded, "Three days."  
  
"Three days!?" Jaime gasped, his mouth slightly hanging open and his eyes grown wide.  
  
"That can't be possible, a day at the most, I mean, we didn't even sleep or eat at all since the buses broke down," Tony mentioned as he walked over to join the conversation.  
  
A female medic who was listening in on what they were saying came over and stood in front of Tony and Jaime, "Hold still."  
  
"What are you going to..." Tony started but was interrupted what she shined a light into his and Jaime's eyes.  
  
"What was that for?" Jaime asked, recovering from momentary blindness.  
  
"Checking your pupils," she responded, putting the light back into her pocket, "They seem to be reacting normal, but you should all come back so we can do some simple tests, make sure you're alright from wandering around the forest for all that time not knowing where you're going."  
  
"OK, we'll go get Rian and Alex, be right back," Tony said motioning for Alex to follow him.  
  
"Rian," Tony called to Rian who must have been telling Alex something, "We all have to go to the hospital, just so they can make sure we don't have any hidden problems we've picked up since the three days of wandering around."  
  
"Three days?" Rian sounded surprised. When Tony nodded, he continued and turned to Alex, "Alright, come on Alex, we have to go with some people to make sure that everyone is alright. However if you keep on saying 'it was the only way' they're going to take you and lock you up in a mental hospital. Can you  _please_ say something else?"  
  
Alex turned to him and tilted his head to the left a little, "But it was the only way..."  
  
"Yes, you keep saying that. But, you added a but to the beginning so that's a start, I guess," Rian gave a small hopeful smile.  
  
Alex said nothing, he just stood there and blankly stared at Rian. "Don't make me drag you there," Rian said when he saw Alex wasn't following.  
  
Alex took a step forward, then another. "Come on, you're going to need to take more than two steps to get there," Rian shook his head.  
  
Five more steps. "I swear to god Alex, if you don't snap out of this I'm going to have you being dragged down the street from the back of the ambulance," Rian said, starting to get annoyed by whatever is going on with Alex.  
  
Eventually, to Rian's relief, Alex started following him.  _Hopefully he snaps out of it soon,_ Rian though.  
  
-*-*-  
  
"Everything seems normal, a slight case of dehydration but a few glasses of water should fix that," Doctor Martin said looking over what has been written on the clipboard.  
  
"What about the other guys?" Are they alright?" Rian asked.  
  
Doctor Martin pierced her lips then answered, "Jaime seems normal but there seems to be something in him that we can't quite detect with any of our machines."  
  
"Then how do you know there's something wrong with him?"  
  
She shook her head, "Some of the reading aren't normal...but there's nothing their. I don't know how it's possible, but it just is."  
  
"What about the others?"  
  
"Mike is badly bruised and has a few broken bones around his face and chest, with a mild concussion. And then there's Alex..." she paused flipping to another page in the clipboard.  
  
"He's gone a bit insane, hasn't he?" Rian looked up at her.  
  
"Well," she looked up from the clipboard and then continued, "To start with his leg is badly damaged as well as his wrist. A few ribs are also broken but yet he doesn't show any signs that anything is wrong. We tried to get an answer out of him and the only thing he as to say is 'it was the only way'."  
  
"Yeah, that's all he's been saying since..." Rian paused and looked down again, "He hasn't been walking with a limp so no one noticed his leg was broken either."  
  
"Since what?" Doctor Martin asked picking up on the first thing he said.  
  
"Since nothing," Rian shook his head, it's not like he was going to just say to her _ever since he killed one of our friends who was infested with a brain controlling parasite_. You never know, Alex just might get arrested for that or even thrown in one of those criminally insane mental hospitals.  
  
"Are you sure about that Mr. Dawson?" her voice suddenly sounded serious as if she knew what he was thinking, "Because  _anything_ could be useful to finding out what's wrong with your friend."  
  
"Well," Rian looked over at the various medical posters that were taped to the wall, "I can't exactly say what happened without him getting in some kind of trouble, I think..."  
  
"So what you're saying is that he did something...illegal?" she whispered the last word.  
  
"Yes and no," Rian admitted.  
  
"Doctor Martin bit her lip and though about what to say next, "Is there a way to phrase it so it won't sound so illegal?"  
  
"Uh..." Rian ran his hand through his hair trying to figure out how to put it, "Well you see, there was this thing in the forest that was trying to kill all of us. So Alex must have found a way to get rid of it and when we asked what he did, all he would say is 'it was the only way'. And he's been saying that ever since."  
  
"Was he acting weird in anyway  _before_ he started repeating 'it was the only way'?" she asked, writing some things down on what Rian guessed was Alex's clipboard.  
  
"He's probably going to hate me for saying this to you, but we think that he may have been seeing someone who isn't really there," he mentioned, stretching out the words.  
  
"You mean he's having hallucinations?" Doctor Martin asked looking up from her writing.  
  
"Just one, I think," Rian said.  
  
Doctor Martin nodded and clicked her pen closed, signaling that the conversation was over. "Thank you Mr. Dawson, for all your help."  
  
"What are you going to do to him? he asked, standing up from the checkup bed he was sitting on, the paper underneath crunched as he moved off it.  
  
"To start with, we're planning on running an MRI on his brain to test for possible brain injury and or any illnesses such as schizophrenia."  
  
"You think he may have schizophrenia?" Rian started to get a little worried.  
  
"Due to the state he's in,  _if_  it is schizophrenia, he may be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.  _However_ we won't be 100% sure until we run the tests," she explained.  
  
Rian just nodded, unsure of what exactly to say next.  
  
-*-*-  
  
 _"Give it to me straight doctor, how long does he have to live?"_ some weeping lady asked on the television. Just another hospital drama with one of the most overly used lines for that type of program. Alex laid on the hospital bed, an IV was stuck into his arm, his unchanging gaze was fixed up on the ceiling. Jack sat on the chair next to him fully aware that someone could unknowingly sit on him it they came into the room to visit. "You sure you don't know where the remote is? 'Cause this show kinda sucks..." Jack whined, looking over at Alex to see if he could strike up a conversation.  
  
But of course, because of whatever that worm thing did to Alex, he's still unable to say anything. After a while of no response, Jack sighed and turned back to the TV. "Hope you come to your scenes soon 'cause this show is going to end up boring me to death...and I'm already dead!"  
  
"Here he is," that doctor lady Jack remembers from before, appeared by the door frame and directed Rian into the room. "If he starts doing anything, let us know because at the moment, he's just lying there."  
  
"I swear to god Rian, if you sit on me..." Jack muttered.  
  
"Like what? If he all of a sudden gets up and starts salsa dancing?" Rian asked, sarcastically.  
  
Doctor Martin shook her head, "Nothing like that, I mean if he starts talking or moving around a little, or even blinks, let us know because at the moment Alex is just laying in a coma-like state."  
  
Rian sighed and looked over at Alex, "Alright. I'll let you know."  
  
"Thank you," she nodded before exiting the room.  
  
"I'll admit," Rian said walking over to Alex then sitting on the chair next to the bed, "This does seem a bit weird."  
  
"You're telling me," Jack grumbled, "You're not the one with a body sitting on your chest."  
  
"I mean, you're just lying there looking up at the ceiling. Eyes wide open, not blinking at all. Almost seems as if you're possessed," Rian gave a small laugh.  
  
"And what would you like for Christmas little boy?" Jack said in a deep voice, imitating Santa Clause.  
  
"You know as well as I do that between me, you, Jack and Zack, we've all been through a lot of shit. But now, I think It would be impossible to think of something worse than this. To be honest, I'm scared. I've always thought of us four to be like a family, and I thought nothing could break us all apart. Who knew something like this had to end up happening. All we really were was these four crazy kids from Baltimore who ended up starting a band. Who knew we'd eventually fall victim to some...whatever the hell that thing is that's killing us all was," Rian paused for a moment before continuing again. "I don't know what I'm trying to get here to be honest. And I don't even know if you're able to hear me babble on about all this but...I just hope you'er able to wake up soon because I hope, no, I  _know_ that you can pull through this. Just another obstacle to over come in The Crazy Life of Alex Gaskarth."  
  
"That's a very heart warming story, I'd wipe away a tear from my eye  _if you weren't sitting on me!_ " Jack hissed even though there's no possible way that Rian could hear him or even know he's sitting there.  
  
After a few seconds of silence, Rian sighed and looked down at the ground. "Jack," he heard someone weakly whisper.  
  
"What?" Rian immediately looked up to see Alex looking at him, "I...I'm not Jack, I'm Rian."  
  
"I know," Alex gave a small smile, "But you're sitting on Jack."  
  
"Oh," Rian stood up and looked down at the empty chair, "Sorry man."  
  
"Yeah, it's alright," Jack responded stretching out in the chair.  
  
"He said it's alright," Alex translated.  
  
"That's good. So uh, how much of that little speech of mine did you hear?" Rian asked rubbing the back of his head, feeling some what embarrassed if Alex heard all of that before.  
  
"I'm not sure," Alex admitted, "To be honest I think I heard most of it. I  _was_ conscious through a whole bunch of it. It sure was a pain in the ass not being able to respond to anything though."  
  
For whatever reason Jack decided to let out a little laugh, earning a quick look from Alex. "I could only imagine," Rian frowned. "But how are you doing? Do you need me to get anyone? Are you alright?"  
  
"I'm fine," Alex shook his head.  
  
"You sure?" Jack asked, "Maybe a cold glass of lemonade, or a fruity bag of skittles, or a nice firm fucking in the ass...?"  
  
"Jack!" Alex gasped getting a very confused look from Rian.  
  
"What?" Jack whined throwing his hands up. "I was just kidding!"  
  
"Um," Rian started, still looking pretty confused, "Did I miss something?"  
  
"You must be pretty glad he couldn't hear me, aren't you?" Jack smirked.  
  
"Nothing," Alex rolled his eyes then looked directly up at Rian, suddenly remembering something, "Wait, I never exactly told you or anyone else that I was hallucination someone, did I?"  
  
"Which is me," Jack interrupted.  
  
"Well," Rian started, "I guess I, well, all of us kinda figured that something was going on with you, no offence. But right now, I guess I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or some kind of freak or anything. Because you're not, you know, you're still the same old Alex and all..."  
  
"I get it, Rian. You need to calm down," Alex gave a small smile. "Hey, how are the other guys?"  
  
"Tony and Jaime are alright, but Mike is beaten up pretty good," Rian answered.  
  
Alex's eyes widened a little, "Oh my god, what happened?"  
  
"It was Vic, but technically it wasn't," Rian said.  
  
"Vic," Alex spoke coldly. "I wish he would just rot out in those woods we were stuck in so I'd never have to see his face again."  
  
"He kind of is..." Rian said softly, "Until they find his body, that is."  
  
"What?" now Alex was the one who was confused, "What happened?"  
  
"You don't...know?" Rian paused.  
  
Alex shook his head. "What was the last thing you remember before waking up in the hospital?" Rian asked.  
  
"I remember that Vic went bat shit crazy and pinned my leg to the ground with a fucking tree branch and was talking some shit about controlling my mind. Then I found out that  _he_ was actually the one who killed Jack! He did something to Zack apparently, and  _made_  him kill Jack. But then I don't remember what happens next because the next thing I remember is the five of us trying to get out of the woods."  
  
"So that's what happened to you, it controlled your mind," Rian said to himself.  
  
"What?" Alex asked a little too forcefully.  
  
"Alex you," Rian closed the door so no one could hear him, then he walked a little closer to Alex's bed then whispered, "You shot him, right in the head."  
  
"I...did..?" Alex asked, shocked.  
  
"But that wasn't Vic who did all that shit to you," Rian alerted.  
  
"But it..." Alex started but was cut off by Rian.  
  
"From what we got from Mike, there was something controlling him, forcing him to do all those things, Zack as well. So whatever Vic did to you, that wasn't him and you  _need_ to forgive him. You should know that Vic would never really do  _anything_ like that to you or any one of us! He's far too mellow to kill us off for no good reason."  
  
Alex let out a small sigh, "I suppose you're right. But I'd still like to know, what the fuck happened back there. How id we all of a sudden come in contact with this mind controlling thing?"  
  
"I don't know," Rian shrugged. "Oh yeah, I got so caught up in talking with you that I forgot I'm suppose to inform a nurse or doctor that you're responding again."  
  
"Wonderful," Alex rolled his eyes, "Why don't you also bring me the therapy that'll most likely come along with it."  
  
"Aw, come on, it won't be that bad," Rian smiled. "Look on the bright side."  
  
"What bright side?" Alex crossed his arms.  
  
"At least you'll have a song for it," Rian said, his smile growing a little bigger.  
  
Alex glared at Rian a little before saying, "Yeah, and maybe I'll have to make a song about punching you in the face."  
  
"Aw, come on, " Rian pouted, "You wouldn't do that to little ol' me."  
  
"You're right, if I end up writing a song about that, you'll see it coming," Alex thought out loud with a tiny grin.  
  
"Oh I see how it is," Rian said as he opened the door, "Gotta catch me on surprise."  
  
"I see you're catching on," Alex said pointing at Rian.  
  
"Yup, now you just wait here for the doctors to come along to relieved your fate," Rian said, backing out of the door.  
  
"When Rian was gone, Alex turned to look at Jack who was still sitting next to him, giving him an odd look. "What?" Alex asked.  
  
"Nothing," Jack just turned away.  
  
"O...kay..." Alex looked forward and changed the channel for something good to watch until someone were to come into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeee, happy ending ^u^


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 where it should be

"Well, well, well," Jaime slowly said, closing the door behind him, "Looks like sleeping beauty has finally awoken from his trance."  
  
"Mhm," Alex nodded, his mouth full of apple sauce.  
  
"Looks like the link got broken some how," Jaime frowned, leaning against the door.  
  
"What link? You mean like a hyperlink?" Alex asked after swallowing the apple sauce.  
  
"They psychological link that I transmitted into your mind to alter the brain waves for me to be able to control you mind, your thoughts, your movements etcetera etcetera etcetera," Jaime quickly explained waving his hand around a bit.  
  
Alex thought over his words for a few seconds then his eyes widened and he tried scrambling out of the bed to get away. "You," Alex gasped, "According to Rian I killed you! Whatever you are, you're supposed to be dead!"  
  
Instead of running away from Jaime, Alex managed to fall backwards on the ground due to the cast that was wrapped tightly around his leg. "Shit," Alex hissed trying to get back up.  
  
"Come on Alex, don't hurt yourself now," Jaime said taking a few steps forward.  
  
"Stay away from me," Alex batted his hand at Jaime who was creeping closer, "Why aren't you dead? Rian said I killed you!"  
  
"Well I'm not, looks like you can't trust everything your friends say. And also, I guess it wasn't the only way of getting rid of me. The only thing your little shooting resulted in is getting your friend Vic killed," Jaime said stopping a little more than a foot from where Alex lays.  
  
"OK, so I didn't kill you, what are you doing here?" Alex's voice started to shake as he continued scooting backwards on the floor, away from Jaime.  
  
"To finish what I started," Jaime shrugged, "We can't have that schizophrenia thing you have going on there betting better. It'll just make it so much harder to take over your mind again."  
  
"How did you get inside Jaime?" Alex asked.  
  
"What is with all these questions?" Jaime threw his hands up in the air, "Are we on some kind of quiz show or something?"  
  
"Just answer me that one question and I'll stop asking all these questions," Alex snapped, gaining a few ounces of courage even though he was still completely scared out of his mind.  
  
"Fine," Jaime sighed then began his reasonings, "This one got a little too close to my previous host's dead corpse. He should have known not to touch dead things. But then again, curiosity is what I love best about you humans. I often count on it to be able to travel from host to host. Just like that one story from Greek mythology about Pandora's Box. She was told to keep the box closed in danger of all that lay inside, but where's the fun in that? Where would the human race be now if no one was the tiniest bit curious at some point?"  
  
"So...you...you came here to...kill me?" Alex stuttered.  
  
"That's a question," Jaime shook his head, looking out the window, "I'm no longer accepting questions from you, you promised."  
  
"OK..." Alex thought of how to phrase it without it being a question, back resting against the wall unable to scoot away any farther. "Thanks for visiting, but I don't want to die...or be hypnotized by you anymore," Alex quickly said the last part.  
  
Jaime snorted then knelt down next to Alex and whispered in his ear, "Too bad, but I'll be fair and give you a choice. Either you die here today, or I make you my slave once again. I'll give you five minutes to choose, when the time is up, and you didn't choose, I'll choose for you." Jaime stood up and walked to the other side of the room, unable to see Alex hiding in the corner in between the bed and the vent stretched out across the back wall.  
  
"It'll be alright," Jack said sitting next to him on the ground, patting his head, "Whatever happens, I'll be there with you. You're kinda stuck with me after all."  
  
Alex gave a weak smile then whispered back as quietly as possible, "Thanks, but I don't know what one I should choose."  
  
"How about this, I"ll list out some of the good and bad things from each situation," Jack started, drumming his fingers together, "If you choose death, he might do something that'll kill you slowly and painfully. But we  _are_ in a hospital so they may be able to cure whatever he might do to you. However he could end up doing it quickly giving you no chance to escape. I suppose you could start screaming causing a whole bunch of people to come flooding in. Jaime will end up going to prison for attempted murder for something he didn't actually do. Whatever is controlling he would probably end up escaping, leaving Jaime with no idea what the fuck just happened and have no memory of why he is getting sent to prison. 

  
"On the other hand you could choose mind control. You broke the link once before, all Rian had to do was basically talk it out of you. Of course a whole bunch of other shit went down before that was able to happen. Of course this time it'll probably be extra secure, making it nearly impossible for you to break free from it.  _Nearly._ Something could end up happening again that'll allow you to sneak through. However he'll be able to control your mind again, we  _are_ out of the woods and now in the city. The wonderful reputation you have, all those fans you got, whatever that thing is could end up destroying it all, leaving you in the dust, not even giving you enough free will to blink your eyes and I'll tell you something, that right there is some scary shit. Your eyes could end up getting so dry they'll end up shriveling up and falling out of your head."  
  
"Stop talking about unblinking eyes, it's not helping this situation," Alex shivered.  
  
"Sure it is, once you get out of this, I'm sure you'll love to have your eyes still intact," Jack insisted pointing at his own eyes.  
  
"Time's up," Alex hears Jaime say as his footsteps began approaching closer to where him and Jack were sitting. Once Jaime was in eye view he asks, "What's the decision going to be?"  
  
"Uh...um..." Alex nervously looked around the room for something that might trigger an answer. "None of the above," he answered, giving a fake smile.  
  
"Wrong answer," Jaime shook his head pulling a scalpel out from his pocket. "Try and scream, and I'll do both options, I'll take over your mind and  _then_ I'll take over your mind so you'll stay silence."  
  
"Please don't kill me, I don't want to die," Alex pleaded, his voice was starting to crack as he tried backing up farther but resulted in getting nowhere.  
  
"You know what?" Jaime said setting down the scalpel that he was studying for a while, "I don't think that's the right way to get rid of you. Too messy. Since we _are_ in a hospital, I have a much bigger access to supplies."  
  
Jaime began rummaging around the room until he found what he was looking for. "Ah yes, these'll do fine," Jaime grinned pulling out the paddles that are used to get someone's heart starting up again. "Nothing like a good jolt of electricity to stop the heart from beating."  
  
"Good luck using those things from all the way over their," Alex taunted, trying not to show how scared he really is.  
  
"You're right, too far of a stretch; I doubt you'll be moving from that spot so..." Jaime trailed off walking into the bathroom.  
  
Alex heard the water running for a few seconds before Jaime shut it off, returning with a full cup of water. "What are you going to do with that? Drown me?" Alex rolled his eyes, surprised by how brave he was actually acting right now.  
  
"No," Jaime shook his head, throwing all the water at Alex's face, "It's the first part of the plan, gotta make you wet first."  
  
Jack covered his mouth, trying to hold back a laugh. Alex ignored him, trying to wipe the water off of him, "What the fuck was that about?"  
  
In the process of Alex trying to get rid of the water, Jaime picked up the pluggable wire that he was stripping the casing off the end before when he gave Alex his five minutes of decision time. Carefully, he plugged it in the outlet that was closest to Alex and dropped it onto Alex's dripping hair. Alex, too consumed with getting the water off of him didn't even notice Jaime's approach with the wire. Suddenly he felt the electricity flooding through his body, paralyzing him in an instant as the voltage made its way through his body, aggravating his heart that was trying so hard to keep the blood pumping at a regular pace. Jaime held down the wire by the part where the coating was still covering the wires. "Isn't electricity fun?" Jaime asked, an evil grin smeared across his face.  
  
Eventually Jaime lifted the wire, throwing it to the side. Alex had sunken fully to the floor, lying flat against the floor as the remaining volts surged through his veins. "And so my reign of terror comes to an end, dissolving into something that never was and never will be," Jack said looking down at his dying friend, fading away, never to be seen again by the living with the last beat of Alex's heart.  
  
-*-*-  
  
"What do you mean 'we're not sure how this could have happened'?" Rian practically yelled at a nurse who just given him the news on Alex's death.  
  
"Please sir, calm down," she took a step back, frantically looking around before looking back at Rian, "I'm not the actual doctor, all I was told is that somehow his heart stopped. They don't know how if it was a heart attack or if someone caused it just yet..."  
  
"So you're saying someone killed him?" Rian growled.  
  
"No no, please, um, the autopsies will be revealed in a few hours and hopefully we'll find the cause of death," she tried to explain.  
  
"'Hopefully we'll find the cause of death'," Rian repeated, "You sound like you wanted this to fucking happen, one less crazy patient to have to deal with."  
  
"No! I didn't say that!" the nurse's eyes were wide and she looked like she was close to bursting out into tears.  
  
"Rian!" Tony rushed over, grabbing him by the arm, "You're gonna make her start crying. It's not her fault what happened to Alex."  
  
"I know, it's just..." Rian snapped but got silenced by Tony.  
  
"Follow me, we need to talk," Tony said walking off towards the direction he came from.  
  
Rian sighed and started following Tony. When Tony stopped walking they both ended up in Mike's room where he was still laying unconscious. The only sound that  could be heard through the room was the various noises the the machines hooked up to Mike were making. "Where's Jaime?" Rian asked, his tone was still harsh from before, "Shouldn't he be here in our little meeting?"  
  
"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Tony said much calmer than Rian.  
  
"Wait, are you going to start saying that  _Jaime_ fucking killed Alex?" Rian began to shout.  
  
"Be quiet," Tony hissed, "He could be listening. You don't know his exact location."  
  
Tony waited for a few seconds before he started talking again, "You know how before you told me that they found something in Jaime but they couldn't exactly identify what it was?"  
  
"Yeah," Rian nodded.  
  
"I think that...whatever that thing back in the woods was, it got into Jaime and now it's taken over him. Wrapping up unfinished business," Jaime explained.  
  
"Son of a bitch," Rian turned around, looking at the door to see if anyone was their.  
  
"If that  _is_ what happened, then what the hell are we going to do now?" Tony asked.  
  
"We could watch Jaime, see if he isn't action out of the ordinary," Rian suggested.  
  
"I suppose, but one problem with that plan," Tony started, "Do you eve know where he went?"  
  
"Last time I saw him, he told me he was going to...to finish some business," Rian said, piecing it all together.  
  
Tony looked at him, "And it didn't occur to you that he could have been off to finish off Alex?"  
  
"No!" Rian shook his head, "I thought he meant he was gonna go take a shit or something, I don't think he was going to kill someone!"  
  
"Alright calm down," Tony put his hands in front of him, "we need to find him, and do a little spying to make sure there isn't something up with him."  
  
"What about Mike?" Rian said motioning over to the hospital bed in front of him, " _if_ it is in Jaime, and  _if_ it is finishing up unfinished business, then it'll be after Mike next. And the condition he's in right now, he would be like easy pray to that thing."  
  
"That's true," Tony nodded, "I'll stay here, you go find Jaime."  
  
"You sure?" Rian asked, just to be sure.  
  
"Yeah," Tony said sitting down on the chair closest to him, "I just can't believe all that's happened in not even a week. Vic's dead, Mike's practically in a coma, Jaime's probably running around with something taking over his head, and you, you're the last one left of your band."  
  
Rian sighed and placed a hand on Tony's shoulder. "Don't think about all the bad shit that happened to us, you're alive and right now we  need to find that thing so you and me and Mike and hopefully Jaime can make it through this, alright?"  
  
"Yeah," Tony looked down, "Just go find him before anything else happens."  
  
Rian nodded and walked out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

"Sir, visiting hours are over, unless you're in need of medical attention, please exit the building," an older nurse said to Rian as he was peering around the corner, still on the hunt for Jaime.  
  
"I was just looking for one of my friends who should be around here somewhere," Rian said turning around to face the nurse.  
  
"Well, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to leave right now. If we find your friend, we'll send him or her on their way of of here just like I'm doing to you," she said pushing Rian forward a bit.  
  
"No, you don't understand, he's been missing for a few hours. I  _have_ to find him," Rian argued, not letting her move him anywhere.  
  
"Has it ever occurred to you that  _maybe_ he left already?" she asked, starting to get irritated with him not moving.  
  
"Of course it has," Rian snapped.  
  
"Then go look for him on the outside world, because if you really have been looking for hours then he's probably not here," the nurse crossed her arms.  
  
"Excuse me," a lady in her mid-twenties approached the two, her dark blond hair tied up into a ponytail, shaking back and forth as she ran towards them, "Are you Rian Dawson?"  
  
"Yeah," Rian answered, making it sound more like a question then a real answer, "Why?"  
  
"Good, I hoped I could still find you here," she said stopping in front of them. "We found your friend he is safely secured...at my friend's house." She looked over at the nurse next to Rian, careful not to say too much around her.  
  
"How did you find him?" Rian asked.  
  
She pierced her lips before saying, "I'll tell you later, just not here."  
  
"Wait, what about Tony, where is he?"  
  
"Tony...?" she thought out loud trying to remember who's named it belonged to.  
  
"You know, the guy with lots of tattoos and has a piercing by his eye," Rian explained.  
  
"Oh yeah!" her eyes grew wide remembering who he was, "That Tony, and yes, he is back at...my friend's house."  
  
"Why do you keep saying...your friend's house...like that?" Rian mimicked.  
  
"Because we need to go," she rolled her eyes and began walking in the direction she came from, not checking to see if Rian was following along.  
  
When they were out in the parking lot, Rian suddenly shouted, "Wait! What about Mike? He's still in the hospital."  
  
"Leave him," she said turning around, still having an irritated look consuming her face. "We got the parasite contained in your friend, it can't get out be we still need to get back to the base as soon as we can. Mike will be fine here."  
  
"Alright, alright," Rian frowned, "Never mind then...wait, base?"  
  
She ignored his question and just turned around and started walking to her car again.  
  
-*-*-  
  
After a not so long, but silent car drive to...her friend's house...or base...or whatever it's called, she parked along the road next to an old abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. "Wait, your friend lives _here_?" Rian asked looking at the mangy looking building.  
  
"No, you idiot, it's where the base is," she rolled her eyes, "I couldn't give away where we were really going out in the open, especially with that lady there, who knows if she's with one of those government people who go out and search for information like what's in here."  
  
By now both of them were about half way through the bottom floor of the building. "I suppose that makes scene," Rian said.  
  
"Mhm," she stopped at an old vending machine in a room that must have once been the factory's break room and pressed seven buttons on the number pad. There was a beep and then a portion of the wall on the other side of the wall that slid away, revealing a dark staircase.  
  
"You don't suppose you have a flashlight, do you?" Rian asked looking down the pitch black set of stairs.  
  
She rolled her eyes, again, something that she must seem to do a lot, and sighed, "Don't be such a little bitch. Get your ass down there before I push you."  
  
"OK, OK," Rian said sounding more like a little kid responding to its parents who kept badgering them to do something, and carefully walked down the staircase.  
  
They didn't have to go very far before the stairs ended and they were standing in front of an elevator that was slightly illuminated in the dark.  
  
"So...you know my name..." Rian started as they waited for the elevator to open.  
  
"Yeah, it's Rian. And that friend of yours who isn't infected is Tony and the one that is is Jaime, that's what Tony said," she remembered.  
  
"So if you know all our names, then what's  _your_ name? You know, so I don't end up having to call you something like 'hey you, lady'," Rian said watching as the doors of the elevator slid open.  
  
"Jessica," she said stepping into the elevator, "But I prefer Jessie."  
  
"OK," Rian nodded, stepping into the elevator as well, "Nice to meet you, Jessie. Thanks for helping us."  
  
"Yeah, but you better pray on your life that after all this shit is over, you'll never have to see me again," Jessie said harshly, not even turning to look at him.  
  
"It going to be that bad?" Rian asked.  
  
"You'll see," was all she said as the elevator doors slid open.  
  
The room the walked into  was huge, much bigger than the room they were in before. There was monitors scattered everywhere, stationed on the wall, on portable carts that had wires connected to something that was under a tarp. There were rooms off to the side surrounded by glass walls, metal walls and cement walls, one even looked like a wall made of floating water. All around there were various machines and weapons and tools that looked far too advanced to be in the time period they are in now. Rian was so busy looking around at all the stuff he didn't even notice Tony who he almost bumped into. "Lots of cool crap around here, right?" Tony asked giving a small grin, stopping Rian before he bumped into him.  
  
"Hey, this stuff isn't 'crap', it's highly advanced technology that the human race probably won't even end up adding to until another hundred years or so," a man corrected, his head peeking out from behind one of the nearby computers. His spiked up hair seemed to be starting to fall flat and his rectangular glasses were lazily perched on his nose.  
  
Jessie (once again) rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the input Corey, did anything happen while I was gone?"  
  
"Nothing that I know..." Corey started but was cut off by a lady with black hair and pale skin who was frantically running over to them.  
  
"What do you mean 'he's gone', how could he be gone? You said he was safely secure in that room," Jessie yelled, not directly at the red haired lady, but more of the idea of Jaime escaping.  
  
"I don't know," she quickly shook her head, "Jorden and I were monitoring the camera's and the room he was in, the screen went out for a second or two. But then when the screen was back on, he was gone!"  
  
"Shit," Jessie hissed and turned to Corey, "It's evolving again, who knows where it could be now, or what it could do with all this crap hanging around."  
  
"This technology isn't crap though," Corey whispered.  
  
"Shut the fuck up before I use one of these 'technological' item on you," Jessie snapped.  
  
"Just let me do a quick check on the amount of conscious life forms, who aren't being stabilized or contained in any way, to see where he went off to," Corey said partly to himself, rapidly typing away on his computer. "Tori, what room is Jorden in right now?"  
  
"27K," Tori answered looking over Corey's shoulder at his computer.  
  
"Alright, found him, and there's six little red dots by us, one for me, Tori, Jessie, Tony, Rian and...someone who shouldn't be here..." Corey slowly looked up at the group of people in front of him.  
  
At the back of the back of the group, Tony stood with an odd looking knife being held being held to his throat by Jaime who was grinning wildly as he said in a snake-like voice, "Hey guys, hope you don't mind if I join in here."  
  
"How did you get out?" Jessie carefully asked him.  
  
Jaime tilted his head to the side, "I can't tell you that, that's  _my_ dirty little secret."  
  
"I don't care," Tori said, remaining calm, "That room we had you in was secure enough that not even a rhinoceros hyped up on steroids could break free."  
  
"A baby one, maybe," Jaime smirked.  
  
"According to what Tori said, you made the screen go black and in the short amount of time that the camera was down, you somehow escaped. I demand you to tell me how you did it," Jessie demanded.  
  
"Demand me to? Oh my, well that's a bit of a problem because I don't take orders from some pathetic human," Jaime said loosing the grin on his face.  
  
"You may thing that now, but you have no idea who you're dealing with. My team here, we may be small and barely known, but that's how we like it, keeps our profile low. We can take you down in a heartbeat, so you should be afraid of a 'pathetic little human' because we know how to take you out," Jessie preached, her fists were balled up, ready to strike at anything.  
  
Jaime laughed, "Please, must you forget, I have a little hostage here. If  _any_ of you take one step forward, I'll slice his fucking throat open like a knife though warm butter."  
  
Tori snorted, "I think you're mixin' up your words, caterpillar, the phrase is 'like a hot knife though butter' not whatever the hell you just said."  
  
Jaime was about to say something but Jessie silenced her, then turned back to Jaime. "Regardless of the phrase, you really wouldn't want to do that," Jessie said slowly.  
  
"Oh? And why not?" Jaime asked.  
  
"You're a bit outnumbered, not you think? Even if you do manage to finish him off, you still have to worry about the rest of us."  
  
"Guess I'll have to try and take down as many of you humans as I can!" Jaime happily shouted, piercing the tip of the blade deep into Tony's throat.  
  
"Now!" Jessie shouted and someone suddenly appeared behind Jaime, injecting a blue liquid from a syringe into the side of Jaime's neck. "We warned you not to do anything to him."  
  
"What the hell was that?" Jaime hissed, collapsing to the ground, a faint stream of something that looked like dark purple smoke was omitting from where the syringe punctured the skin.  
  
"It's called chlorine, better known as bleach. And that twine of alien DNA that you have inside you, just one drop would boil that species' skin, just imagine what it would do once it's inside their bloodstream," the man who the others called Jorden explained with a cocky voice explained, tossing the syringe on a nearby table.  
  
"If you just injected him with bleach, wouldn't that kill Jaime too?" Rian panicked on what was happening to his friends.  
  
"He's not the one you should be worrying about," Corey motioned towards Tony laying on the floor.  
  
Rian quickly knelt down next to Tony to see if he was alright. Tony seemed alright from being stabbed in the throat, but the injury still seemed pretty severe. He turned back to the people behind him and quickly asked, "I'm no doctor, and specialized in whatever all this shit around here is, but I'm pretty sure if you inject bleach into someone, they're going to die."  
  
"We'll it's obvious that you know nothing of what's really going on, otherwise you'd know that this parasite that is taking control of your friend is going to absorb every last drop," Jessie informed.  
  
"How?" Rian asked.  
  
"If you would've let me finish," Jessie sighed, "I was going to tell you."  
  
"Sorry," Rian looked over at Tony then back at her, "Please continue."  
  
"As I was saying," Jessie continued, "That things a parasite, right? So in order to survive it need to feed on its host without killing it. So what it does once it enters someone's body is it excretes a toxin from inside it's body to make the blood supply more nutritious for consumption. This 'nutritious' blood then flows through the blood stream and up to the brain where it absorbs all the nutrients, including that bleach it's forced to absorb."  
  
"Because of the absorption, Jaime will be completely unharmed?" Rian asked, making sure he was on the right track.  
  
"Physically yes, mentally however, it'll depend," Jessie admitted.  
  
"Here it comes," Tori shouted, picking up a small flamethrower-looking object from one of the nearby tables.  
  
"Careful everybody, it's injured but still extremely dangerous, don't let it touch you," Jessie commanded.  
  
A small metal bowl was quickly placed over the squirming creature. Through a small incision hole at the top, the little flamethrower Tori was holding was plugged into it and a fiery blast was shot into the upside down bowl. "That's going to leave quite the mark on the floor," Corey joked.  
  
"Yeah, and now I'm assigning you to clean it up," Jessie commanded, giving him a smile.  
  
Corey was about to say something to protest but decided not to and just sulked in his chair. "So, does this mean that it's over now?" Rian asked, leaning Jaime's unconscious body against the wall then sat by Tony.  
  
"Hopefully," Jessie said, giving a sigh of relief. "That means that we won't have to track it any more."  
  
"Wait," Rian began, remembering something said earlier, "Did you say before that, whatever that thing was, it had  _alien_ DNA in it?"  
  
Jessie nodded, watching Corey clean up the smoldering ashes of the little parasite that cause the two bands so much trouble. "I did,  _but_ it was actually human made, the parasite I mean. A few years ago a man by the name of Professor Remington Ashton got a hold of DNA from a destructively brutal race known as the Jelamitions. They have the ability to inject an acid into your bloodstream and make you their very own puppet, able to control your body and mind. He's been known for taking two different species and crossbreeding them. So, he decided to make a creature that was deadly in a whole new way. He took a leach, which is known for drawing blood out of its victim and a parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii, which is known to affect the brain, and added the DNA of the Jelamitions to the newly created creature.   
  
"After many long hours, his creation was finally complete, and that's when his little experiment took a turn for the worse. Little did Professor Ashton realize, but that little creature he created had a whole new mind of its own, a mind that couldn't be controlled by its creator. If Professor Ashton did a little more research, he would have known that the Jelamitions are only controlled by a series of telepathic signals that pulses through their minds.  
  
"Absent of knowing this information, plus not having the technology to copy these signals, the creature then turned on the professor. It took control of him, just like it did to your friend here and used him as a skin suit to go on a murdering spree, killing 72 students and three other professors, temporarily satisfying its blood lust. The creature escaped from the Professor, leaving behind a dazed host to clean up all its mess. Professor Remington Ashton was sentenced for 75 accounts of murder, earning 24 years for each. Given a total of 1,800 years, he wan't eligible for parole or bail so he was forced to spend his remaining days locked up. Being in Minnesota, the death penalty wasn't as option, so to this day he remains in prison, currently serving his sixth year."  
  
"Dispite anything he said, no one would believe him or try to prove his innocence. We've been trying to locate this creature since then, and unfortunately, the original one has adapted to our environment, breeding with the other leeches and Toxoplasma gondii that roam around these areas to create a whole new species that, unless stopped, could cause the end of the human race and even the whole universe."


	12. Chapter 12

Jaime awoke as if he was being deprived of breath. Gasping, he closed his eyes and stared down at the ground until he could regain his breath once more. Once his breathing regulated, he opened his eyes and peered around at what surrounded him. Jaime was sitting in an a hospital room, but the two clear corner walls in front and to his right questioned where in the hospital he was located. "Hello," Jaime croaked, surprised by how his voice sounded, "Is anyone around?"  
  
An unknown face appeared through the right clear wall and entered a door that didn't appear to be their. "I see you're finally awake," he said, "I suppose I should alter the others, but I just wanted to make sure that you weren't freaking out or anything."  
  
"Well..." Jaime started, "Can you tell me where I am in the hospital, cause I never seen anywhere like this. And where are the rest of my friends? Is Mike alright? I think I may have passed out myself and..."  
  
"Whoa," the other man halted, "Easy with the questions. First of all, I can't exactly tell you where you are because of our top secret location and such."  
  
"Top secret?" Jaime cocked his head to the side.  
  
"Yeah, we got a lot of extra-terrestrial technology around and we don't wan anyone finding it and such. Anyways, your friends are doing alright. Rian is with Tony and Tony is recovering quite well from the...little mishap that happened earlier..." he trailed off.  
  
"What mishap? And who actually are you?" Jaime asked.  
  
He sighed at all the questions that were being thrown at him, even though he knew Jaime knew nothing on what was going on at the moment. "Well, first of all, I'm Corey, and you, well the thing controlling you, kind of slit Tony's throat a bit. But don't worry! He's alive!" Corey said the last two sentences quickly.  
  
"What the fuck do you mean by 'I tried to slit his throat'? What kind of person do you think I am?" Jaime said harshly.  
  
Corey shook his head, "I didn't say that  _you_ tried to to slit his throat, I said the  _thing controlling you_ tried to slit his throat. Thankfully it didn't get a chance to cut any major tubes in the throat or else he would have been a goner."  
  
Jaime shook his head, unsure of what to say next. Thankfully Corey ended the silence that was soon to be approaching, "You seem to be alright, would you like to go see them?"  
  
Jaime hesitated for a moment before answering, "They're not going to be mad at me, are they?"  
  
Corey shook his head, "Not at all. They know that you had no control over your actions. So what do you say? Want to reunite with your friends?"  
  
"Sure," Jaime nodded; still weary on how Tony and Rian are going to react to his sudden appearance.  
  
Jaime followed Corey through the labyrinth of hallways that stretched throughout the building. Corey lead Jaime to another room where, once again, only two of the walls were transparent. Jaime wondered what the purpose of that was. It was just a room sitting attached to a wall behind it, no other room or rooms attached to the sides. Inside the room, Jaime could see Tony, Rian, and a lady with long, dark blond hair strung up into a ponytail. Tony appeared to have a white bandage stuck to his throat. "The bandage around Tony's neck is from me, isn't is?" Jaime asked before Corey opened the door.  
  
"Not you," Corey corrected without looking at Jaime, "The parasite controlling you."  
  
When Corey and Jaime entered the room, Rian, Tony, and the blond haired lady all stood up. "Is be better?" the blond lady asked in a voice that gave away that she was the one giving the orders around here.  
  
Corey nodded, "I don't think the has any memory of what happened and I'm pretty sure he still thinks he's still at the hospital."  
  
"Wait," Jaime interrupted, "I thought I was in some secret underground floor. If I'm not in the hospital, then where exactly am I?"  
  
"I guess that you could say that we're in an underground layer that houses a shit-load of alien crap," Rian responded.  
  
Corey gave a small cough, "It's not 'crap'. I don't get why you guys keep calling it that."  
  
"Corey," the blond haired lady rolled her eyes, "It's a collection of stuff from all around the universe that a large portion if it, as far as we know, doesn't work; crap."  
  
"Come on, Jessie," Corey pouted, "Don't go siding with them now."  
  
"Too late. Next subject, Jaime," Jessie began, turning to Jaime, "How are you feeling?"  
  
"OK, I guess, my neck feels a little sore," Jaime noted rubbing his neck a little.  
  
"Yeah? Well chlorine will do that to you," she said the turned to Rian and Tony, "You three should go now that your friend here is alright."  
  
"Hang on," Jaime put his hands up to show that no one was going to be leaving, "What do you mean by 'chlorine will do that to you'?"  
  
"Well, you know that thing that was going around killing your friends?" Jessie began.  
  
"I...guess," Jaime shrugged.  
  
"Well, it was controlling you and the only way to get it out of you, besides burning you alive, was to inject chlorine into your blood stream. The parasite would absorb all the chlorine in your veins and begin to shrivel up. It had no choice but to evacuate your body to regain its health. And when it exited, we lighted up the little fucker so it'll never be able to take over another body  _ever_ again," Jessie gave a malevolent grin.  
  
"I'm not going to end up dying from being injected with chlorine, am I?" Jaime asked nervously.  
  
Jessie shook her head, "You should't, because the parasite absorbed it all."  
  
"That's good," Jaime gave a sigh of relief and Rian and Tony both nodded in agreement.  
  
"We really should get back to the hospital," Tony said, "If Mike woke up already, he's going to be wondering where we went."  
  
"At least Alex is with him, right...?" Jaime said, but saw his friends face's go white. "Or, is Alex off doing something else. Don't tell me you lost him somewhere in this maze of a building."  
  
The other four people in the room were all exchanging nervous looks on who should be the one to tell him. "I'll tell him," Rian said grimly, "Alex and I  _were_ in the same band."  
  
Jaime watched as Rian closed his eyes and took a deep breath before hearing Rian answer his question. "Jaime," Rian began and opened his eyes. His eyes appeared to be so sad, as if he was trying to hold back all the recent memories, "Alex...is dead."  
  
"What?" Jaime gasped, "How? I thought I just saw him!"  
  
"A lot happened since then," Tony grumbled.  
  
"What happened? How'd he die?" Jaime whispered.  
  
"That thing that was controlling you, it killed him," Rian said softly, looking down at the floor.  
  
"So...I killed him..." Jaime whispered.  
  
"No!" Rian snapped, his eyes looked as if they were fueled with fire apposed to the saddened look from before, " _You_ didn't kill Alex, whatever that  _thing_ was did!" Just like Zack didn't kill Jack and Vic didn't kill Zack. That thing was controlling their heads and forcing the bodies to do all those things!"  
  
"Calm down Rian," Jessie instructed, "It's all over, no one's going to be brutally slaughtered anymore because the parasite is dead. Now, why don't you three get the hell out of here and go back to your friend in the hospital."  
  
Without any more words, Corey led the three out of the secret base and drove them back to the hospital. "Good luck guys," was the last words Corey said to them before the three got out of the van.  
  
The three stood and watched as Corey drove away. "So...is it...over?" Jaime asked once the van was out of sight.  
  
"I sure hope so," Rian sighed, "Come on, let's get up to Mike."  
  
Tony and Jaime both nodded and followed Rian up to the floor where Mike's room was located. When they stopped out of the elevator, there seemed to be a gloomy haze cast upon many teenagers and young adults that seemed to located themselves into a room with a whole bunch of chairs. Some of them were even crying. When they spotted Rian, Jaime and Tony, their faces grew sympathetic and a few event turned away. "Think they know about what happened to the others?" Jaime whispered.  
  
"Probably," Rian whispered back. "Unless they're all here for another reason."  
  
The three were about to enter Mike's room when one of the nurses rushed up to them and blocked them from entering. "I'm so very sorry," he whispered looking right at them, giving them the same sympathetic looks some of the other people were giving them before.  
  
"What happened?" Rian demanded, eyes growing wide.  
  
"Mike didn't make it," the nurse said just a little louder than before.  
  
"You mean he's...dead?" Jaime started to panic.  
  
The nurse nodded.  
  
"How?" Tony asked.  
  
"He began having seizures. They were able to control the first two, but no matter what they did, they couldn't stop the third," the nurse explained.  
  
"Son of a bitch," Rian hissed and turned away once the nurse was gone, "I thought this was suppose to be over! No one would die anymore, but then this shit has to happen and cause one more name to the body count."  
  
"You better not be blaming Mike for dying," Tony narrowed his eyes.  
  
"Of fucking course I'm not blaming Mike! I'm blaming that little worm thing for destroying everything we've built so hard to accomplish. Both our bands were getting so big. More and more people were finding out about us and both our bands were making  _such_ a positive impact on so many of our fans. I've seen people come crying to us because one of our songs made them decide to hold on a little longer and I know that your band has that same impact on people. But that  _thing_ didn't care, you could be the nicest person in the world and it wouldn't change a thing. I would  _never_ blame  _anyone_ from Pierce the Veil or All Time Low for  _any_ of this because  _they_ didn't take control of our minds and force us to kill each other. We were merely puppets in a rough draft to take over the world."  
  
After a few moments of silence, Jaime spoke up, "I think the best thing for us to do is just walk away and try and live our lives the best we can, and try to live on the legacy of what we all were."  
  
Tony nodded and Rian exhaled for a good second, as if letting of of all the built up rage inside him. "Alright," Rian eventually agreed.  
  
"Good," Jaime tried to give a small smile, "It's getting late, we really should find a place to rest and deal with all of this shit tomorrow."  
  
"Yeah, it's been a long day," Tony nodded, "Let's say good bye to Mike, then get the hell out of here."  
  
 *****Five Months Later*****  
  
"Five months and you three haven't dissolved into a complete mess," Pete Wentz joked as he took another sip of his coffee, "I'll admit, I'm impressed."  
  
"To be honest, it hasn't really been smooth sailing either," Rian admitted, staring into the dark brown liquid in front of him.  
  
"And that's perfectly understandable," Andy Hurley said while fiddling with a napkin. "I know if I were in your shoes, I probably would have broken down already."  
  
"Me too," Patrick Stump quietly admitted, "You guys are strong for being able to pull through this like you are."  
  
"It's more of a team effort," Jaime said looking over at Tony and Rian.  
  
Tony nodded, "To be honest, every day I wake up and hope that I was back to the day this all started so I could prevent it all from happening. But every day I just get further and further from my wish."  
  
"The good thing is, you three are here for each other and not letting the others go completely mad," Joe Trohman encouraged.  
  
"I suppose," Tony shrugged.  
  
"Easy for you guys to say," Rian frowned and looked up from the coffee in front of him, "The worst thing you guys have been through in the sense of splitting up is the hiatus. No one has ever died in your band aside from music videos."  
  
"Rian..." Jaime started.  
  
"No, he's absolutely right. We  _never_ experienced the pain of what you three are going through," Patrick looked right at them, "And I hope we never do. I wish that you didn't have to go through this ever day. Knowing that your best friends aren't going to be with you anymore just because of some alien parasite that some how came along and stole it all away. No one deserves that."  
  
"At least you still have the memories of who they once were," Pete pointed out, trying to make them feel a little better.  
  
Rian shook his head, "You're right, Patrick. No one deserves any of this. No one deserves to die the way they did. Why are memories the only thing that keeps them in our minds? Only videos and pictures of the past and memories in our heads can have us relive the way they used to talk and laugh and all the other crazy shenanigans that they'd do on and off stage. Some people take life for granted, but when you're gone, you leave behind a trail of all the things that people are going to miss about you. And just thinking of all the things you're going to leave behind, it really makes you re-think your whole life."


End file.
